Remembering Calgary’s first LGBTQ2S+ bar

CALGARY (CityNews) – If you search 1207 1 St. SW you’ll find a sports bar currently in business.

But as Lois Szabro tells CityNews, 50 years ago it was a controversial club.

“It was supposedly a gay establishment but the owner was selling tickets to straights to come watch the queers, come watch the queers dance together.”

It was the late 1960s and Szabro and a group of friends wanted to put a stop to being a form of cheap entertainment for the straight bar patrons.

They eventually started a boycott against the club in Victoria Park. That club ended up going bankrupt and Szabro and a few others took over the space, becoming the founding directors of Club Carousel.

“A lot of the young people would come down early before the dancing to talk about what was going on in their lives,” said Szabo.

“Not being able to get a job not being able to get an apartment. Their mom and dad abandoning them. They really needed a place to talk. It was Calgary’s first gay establishment – owned an operated by gay people and for gay people.”

“Fifty years ago we were criminals. Now we have equal rights. Maybe not in everyone’s hearts and minds but legally we do,” said Kevin Allen, author of Calgary’s Gay History.

He said with Calgary Pride festival celebrating 30 years, it’s important to remember its past.

“It’s important we recognize the shoulders we are standing on. All these people that stood up like Lois and stuck her neck out at a time when it was probably scary to do so.”

As for Szabro, the 84-year-old believes there needs to be more support for the LGBTQ2S+ community especially at this moment in time when people can feel even more isolated.

“Anyone who was gay–either young or old–wouldn’t have had the opportunity to voice their opinion of what took place, so that is progress. Great progress.”