SUDBURY - Sex sells, as the saying goes, but the new tenants at a former strip club in Sudbury are giving away the “Solid Gold” sign away for free.
Stack Brewing put the sign on Kijiji in hopes of finding it a new home, along with a very tongue-in-cheek sales pitch.
“Own a piece of Sudbury's dirtiest ;) history!!,” the listing says. “It can be all yours for FREE.
“Put it up in your living room and reminisce with your wife all the good times had there. This sign is perfect for a dorm room wall, man cave, baby room, you name it. Early Christmas gift idea for your father-in-law. It'll get ya in his good books, we swear.”
Ashley McCarvell, Stack's sales, marketing and events manager, said they are working hard to renovate the building for its new brew pub and eatery.
“So that was our main focus and then we forgot about the roadside sign, and then you know, we realized it was such an eyesore,” McCarvell said Thursday.
So she put it on Kijiji at 8 a.m. – and within two minutes, they began to be flooded with messages and calls from people interested in the sign.
“Our phone was actually off the hook at Stack, because it was just one phone call after another,” she said.
They didn't consider trying to get money for the sordid sign, she said. They just wanted to make a clean break from the location's history as soon as possible. The only requirement was whomever wanted it had to safely and professionally take the sign down and haul it away.
They settled on a business from Barrie, who is bringing equipment up this weekend to cart it away forever.
“It's two guys that own this company and they want to put it, I guess, in their main facility,” McCarvell said. “I have no idea why, but they're pretty freaking determined.”
The adult entertainment bar closed in January 2017, after a colourful 27-year run on Falconbridge Road.
Original concerns about allowing a sports bar so close to a high school — St. Charles College — were raised higher when it emerged the site would actually be a strip club.
The VIP Club was in the news in the 1990s, when it was a target of biker gangs. In 1996, Ion William Croitoru, 53, an alleged member of Satan's Choice, was kicked out of the bar for displaying biker gang colours. Intent on revenge, Croitoru plotted to blow the bar up, but instead decided to use the explosives to blow up the Sudbury Police station downtown.
It caused $100,000 in damages and Croitoru was sentenced to 33 months in jail. He died in 2017.
And in April 2011, a security guard at the club was shot three times as a car sped out of the parking lot. Two Quebec men were later convicted in connection with the incident.
With such a checkered history, McCarvell said Stack is more than ready to get rid of the sign and make a new start.
“We're just excited to get the restaurant up and running and we're excited to get rid of the Solid Gold sign,” she said.
- Sudbury.com/Laurentian Media
