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March 23, 2005

The Less Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

While Minneapolis' famous First Avenue thrashes and flounders, Saint Paul's Turf Club keeps chugging along:

One of the Twin Cities' best-loved music venues, the Turf Club in St. Paul, could soon have a new owner but probably won't change its tune.

Mark Johnson, whose family has owned the 70-year-old Midway-area bar since 1969, has entered into a contract to sell it to Tom Scanlon, owner of the nearby Dubliner Pub. The sale could happen within a month, pending the resolution of several issues, including licensing approval from the city.

That last sentence is enough to make any St. Paulite's blood run icy; Saint Paul's neighborhood activists oppose licensing anything louder than a meditation center and bigger than a phone booth. Anything that has to do with fun, they protest.

But barring that, this is great news. The Turf is one of the classic old-school bars; in the eighties, it was the kids of place where old drunks hung out all day drinking 75 cent drafts, and danced to polka music all weekend. In the nineties, it became a rock and roll club, but kept a lot of its old thirties and forties ambience. It was the last place I played a gig with a band (and the first place I'd like to play again, someday), and it's one of my favorite rooms in town to play.

Good news for Saint Paul.

Barring any more of those accursed neighborhood activists.

Posted by Mitch at March 23, 2005 05:30 AM | TrackBack
Comments

The Irish save the day in St. Paul yet again.

Posted by: paddy at March 23, 2005 10:03 AM
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