Montreal - Gay Village Club Goes Up in Flames

Stock Bar & Unity
Montreal's largest gay bar went up in smoke yesterday when its rooftop terrace caught fire.

It took 150 firefighters nearly four hours to get the blaze at Club Unity on Ste. Catherine E. and Montcalm Sts. under control.

The fire was probably an accident, said Michel Denis, fire department chief of operations.

Because the blaze began just before noon when the three-storey club was closed, no one was inside the building.

Losses could very well reach $1 million because valuable electronic equipment inside the nightclub was destroyed by water, Denis said.

A group of the club's employees stood on the street yesterday afternoon, watching the smoke billow from their workplace.

"I was woken up today by a call from my manager telling me not to come to work tonight, so I came to see if it was really true," said Mathieu Montpetit, a performer at Unity.

Also yesterday, a 47-year-old woman died from smoke inhalation in an apartment fire that broke out at 1 a.m. on Lalonde Ave. in the city's east end.

The woman was the 11th person to die this year in a fire on the island of Montreal, police Sgt. Ian Lafreniere said.