Advertisement

Vancouver’s last porn theatre shutting down; no heritage appeal planned

The Fox Cinema in Vancouver is closing down.

I doubt any of you are going to shed a tear at the news that Vancouver's last porno theatre is closing.

Your reaction probably is, "people still go to porn theatres?"

The Globe and Mail reports the Fox Cinema on Main Street is being leased to a group that plans to refurbish it and add it to its holding of live-entertainment venues in the city. The Fox will show its last porn movie sometime before entrepreneur David Duprey and his partner take possession Aug. 1.

“It’s going to need some scrubbing,” Duprey told the Globe. “Lots of bleach. When you want to get a job done right, sometimes you have just got to get in there and do it yourself.”

The Fox has shown adult movies for more than two decades. It was thought to be the last in North America to screen 35mm films until it switched to video projection a few years ago.

[ Related: Toronto's last porn theatre goes back to its roots ]

It was once at the heart of a decrepit area of the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood south of downtown. Hookers patrolled residential streets nearby and druggies shot up in laneways.

But the area south of downtown has gentrified as younger Vancouverites looking for affordable homes moved in. New condos, trendy restaurants and boutiques turned the Fox into an unpleasant reminder of the neighbourhood's seedy past.

But you can blame the demise of the Fox on a bigger cultural shift. Adult movie venues thrived in the 1960s and '70s, spawning chains like the infamous Pussycat Theaters in the United States.

That all changed with the advent of home video machines in the 1980s. Oh, you still had to go into a video store and head into the special partitioned section to pick out your VHS or DVD, then hope the smirking clerk didn't make eye contact when you paid (so I hear, anyway). But no more slouching in the creaky seat of some rundown grind house that had seen better days.

The web finally delivered the coup de grace to porn palaces like the Fox. The only dedicated onanists to show up now were those without an Internet connection.

[ Related: Fred Willard gets support from Hollywood stars after his arrest ]

Last year, Toronto's last porn theatre, the Metro, was acquired by two entrepreneurs who planned to turn it into a venue for indie and foreign films four nights a week, CBC News reported. It will, however, still show adult films in the afternoon.

No civic heritage wonks will be upset when the Fox shows its last dirty movie.

But I wonder, where will minor celebrities like Fred Willard, Nick Stahl and Pee Wee Herman go when they feel the need to make themselves more interesting by getting arrested for lewd behaviour?