Oil City and Vinyl nightclubs close doors in downtown Edmonton

An assistant manager at Oil City Roadhouse says the Jasper Avenue nightclub has shut its doors.

The country-themed spot was one of the most notorious venues in downtown Edmonton.

A second club in the same building, Vinyl, has also closed. Both were owned by Mike Stang, who bought the venues from the Oil City Hospitality Group, in April.

Hector Castro, an assistant manager,? says Stang emailed staff about the closures on Wednesday afternoon.

?I was taken aback by (the decision),? Castro writes in an email. ?Shocked at the complete lack of notice and the way in which the news was delivered.

?Also a bit confused that Mike would decide to fold the company when the bar was finally on its upswing and looking to have a very busy September.?

Stang has yet to respond to the Journal?s requests for an interview.

Castro estimates 40 people worked part-time at Oil City and another 40 worked at Vinyl. He hopes the building will be reopened as another club. ?I can?t imagine the venue not being taken by any of the hospitality groups in the city,? he writes.

?The combined capacity is about 1,600 seats in the middle of downtown Edmonton next to parking, the new Avenue upgrade, schools and relatively close to the future arena. It would be a huge disappointment if this building just got demolished to make room for a gravel parking lot.?

While Oil City is credited as helping to revitalize downtown Edmonton when it opened in 2007, the club was the subject of many complaints about noise, litter and violence. Two months after a brawl outside the bar in 2008, the Alberta government instituted a minimum on price drinks.

The Oil City Hospitality Group decided to sell Oil City Roadhouse and Vinyl earlier this year to concentrate on smaller, more financially stable pubs such as The Pint and The Public House.

More to come ?

Source: http://feeds.canada.com/~r/canwest/F264/~3/v2U6bO43QSU/

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