Fernando Restituto –
If you were a drug dealer, would you want to deal on a dangerous and cold street corner – or would you want the safety and comfort of a dive bar?
On July 7, 2023, Karolina Huebner-Makurat was tragically killed by a stray bullet during an altercation between drug dealers near Carlaw and Queen Streets. In the aftermath, much public discussion has blamed a safe consumption site run by the South Riverdale Community Health Centre. However, this narrative ignores a shift in the city’s landscape that made this street violence more likely.
Over the past decade, Queen East has undergone rapid gentrification. Sketchy dive bars have been replaced by upscale restaurants, boutiques and sanitized nightlife. While this may seem like a cultural improvement, the dive bars played a crucial role in containing and controlling the drug trade. They provided informal safeguards by spreading dealers out, discouraging violent turf wars, and keeping conflicts behind closed doors. Without them, these disputes have moved into the open, leading to the kind of violence that claimed Huebner-Makurat’s life.
In a turf war among drug dealers, imposing supremacy by robbing a drug dealer inside a dive bar risk pissing off the establishment’s owner. Firing a bullet, even just a warning shot, would result in being kicked out for life; being seen by other patrons in the bar would lead to lose ends and liability. Sketchy dive bars discourage these predictable moments of the unregulated marketplace that are prone to violently spiraling out of control.
Furthermore, sketchy dive bars provide dealers with the option of casually hanging out, buying a beer and playing pool, and asking around if anyone else is selling drugs. The ability to feel out a spot and notice whether it’s has been taken enables dealers to manage territory without violence.
An array of sketchy dive bars also suppresses violence from spilling out on the streets by physically spreading dealers out. Half a decade ago, the 400 metres on Queen East from Logan to Pape featured six bars or others places where hard drugs were sold.
Sketchy dive bars have a way of blending into urban streets, sometimes by being physically small, sometimes by seeming like (or being) a legitimate establishment. Even I, who has lived the majority of my life on these streets, was not aware of just how numerous these bars were.
On the corner of Boston and Queen was Tasty Chicken, which did not serve chicken but was a great place for a warm beer, a bowl of Doritos and (of course) hard drugs. Moving west from Queen and Carlaw was Back of House. East of Queen and Carlaw was Velvet, with very low lighting. Across the street was K&S Family Restaurant; past a certain hour it became a great place to hang out and deal drugs. West of Tasty Chicken was tiny bar The Cave.
But there are no longer any obvious spots to deal drugs on Queen East centering on Carlaw, where Huebner-Makurat lost her life.
K&S has been replaced with the high-end and organic Rowe Farms meat store. At the former Velvet you can get a Brazilian wax. Back of House is now just the back of a house. Tasty Chicken is now Wei Bar, and PQs is a 1950s diner. And the once sketchy dive bar The Cave is now the office of Julie Dabrusin, my elected Member of Parliament.
As a child I saw my first illegal firearm in front of Tasty Chicken. My buddy’s older cousin, who was working the spot, thought it would be cool to show off his piece to the kids. I remember gun shots waking me up in the middle of the night because police had raided Tasty Chicken. No person was killed, but a dog died protecting its owner. Years later my disadvantaged childhood friend started dealing out of the spot to provide for his daughter.
I celebrated as each of the sketchy dive bars closed, but then on that tragic day, a stray bullet killed a passerby. Why was there a gun fight in the middle of the street? An online video of the clash between the dealers showed it wasn’t a drive-by shooting or planned act of gun violence. It was one dealer trying to push another off his turf and it spun out of control, the type of thing that used to happen inside sketchy dive bars.
I’d like to acknowledge and credit Rr and another anonymous source. I have no experience selling hard drugs, but I grew up in the ‘hood and my childhood friends do.
