In 1991, Fiona Smyth was tasked with designing the bar's exterior artwork, featuring a cartoonish bovine skull that would become the bar's informal logo.May Truong/The Globe and Mail
When news broke last year that beloved Toronto dive bar and live music venue Sneaky Dee’s was facing the threat of demolition, neighbours and industry groups alike sprang into action. They circulated petitions, wrote to municipal staff and took to social media to express dismay over the pending loss.
For artist Fiona Smyth, who designed the exterior murals that make Sneaky Dee’s corner location so distinctive, the block’s looming development application brings back memories of a different era and speaks to the inevitable nature of urban change.
Originally from Montreal, Smyth is now a celebrated feminist painter, illustrator, cartoonist and educator. As a lifelong professional artist, her work was made visible by the gig with Sneaky Dee’s, a serendipitous partnership nearly 40 years ago that was only possible with the help of an affordable music venue that was willing to take a chance on an emerging artist.
“It’s such a part of my coming up, and it continues to be here,” she says. “I always look at it when I’m on the streetcar.”
In 1987, Smyth was a punk rocker in her early twenties, scribbling on the walls of dive bar bathrooms along Bloor Street West, where she often hung out with friends. She was also getting commissioned to paint jean jackets at the time, which eventually led to a gallery show in Yorkville.
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When restaurateur Andrew Kilgour found out it was Smyth who has been gracing bathroom stalls along the stretch with her artwork, he asked if she would paint a mural in the basement of a new space he was setting up with his business partners, a Tex-Mex restaurant and live music venue on Bloor Street West near Bathurst, which would eventually become Sneaky Dee’s first location.
When the venue moved to its current location on College Street in 1991, Smyth was again tasked with designing much of the bar’s exterior artwork, a series of acrylic signs at once cheerful and anarchic, featuring a cartoonish bovine skull that would become the bar’s informal logo. The design is Smyth’s own take on the Tex-Mex theme in the graffiti style she had been experimenting with since the mid-80s. Later, she was tasked with designing a mural for the Dance Cave at nearby Lee’s Palace, another independent music venue.
“It definitely helped solidify things, or move things along for me,” she says of the Sneaky Dee’s mural gig. “I had a spot I could call people’s attention to, so even if they didn’t know my [other] art, I would say, ‘Oh, you know, Sneaky Dee’s,’”
Since setting up shop on the corner of College and Bathurst with Smyth’s distinctive signage, Sneaky Dee’s has become as much a late night refuge as a community staple, serving cheap beer and nachos, and hosting an eclectic event roster that includes local bands, amateur wrestling, drag shows, dance parties, film screenings – even yoga.
But as Smyth reflects on the long-faded mural above Sneaky Dee’s entrance, she can’t help wonder about the bar and venue’s precarious future. “I’m hoping it might live on,” she says. “They created one thing and then the people kind of took it over. You can see it in the stickers and the graffiti on the walls.”
Developer Goldberg Group has applied to demolish almost the entire block of College Street that houses Sneaky Dee’s and build a 16-storey condominium in its place. The developers have said the new building will have space for the venue – possibly in the basement – and they will help the venue owners find an interim location nearby when construction starts, which could be years away.
Sneaky Dee’s has become as much a late night refuge as a community staple, serving cheap drinks and food as well as hosting an eclectic event roster.May Truong/The Globe and Mail
Sneaky Dee’s is the latest in a long line of independent music venues across the country to face the threat of displacement amid rising commercial rents, competing land-use pressures and changing audience habits. Vancouver, for example, saw more than 400 artist-production, music and performing-arts venues shutter over the past decade, while Toronto saw a 13 per cent decline of its independent music venues over the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report published by the University of Toronto.
As an instructor who teaches illustration and cartooning at the Ontario College of Art and Design University, Smyth now works with young artists coming of age amidst an affordability crisis, one where entry-level opportunities for both artists and musicians are dwindling. She says it feels dystopian that a venue once known as an “open door” for emerging musicians to gain experience could be replaced with market-rate condo units, which may be unaffordable for many local residents.
“Who’s buying these new condos?” she asks.
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At a community council meeting in Toronto last month, a petition with more than 100 signatures opposing the demolition of Sneaky Dee’s was circulated, and dozens of residents expressed similar views in person. Many of them emphasized the importance of local music venues as affordable “third spaces” – locations separate from one’s work and home that provide opportunities to connect over food, music or other interests.
One of those residents was actress and producer Sadie Stranks, who shot a short film about Sneaky Dee’s infamous Emo Nights. “You can always build another condo,” she told the community council. “You cannot recreate decades of culture, history and human connection after it has been erased.”
Journalist Becky Robertson also spoke at the community council meeting on May 28, concerned the continuing displacement of local music and community venues will make neighbourhoods largely unlivable. “It’s these kinds of places that make cities what they are,” she said. “Without places like it, we are just going to become a sea of highrises full of people who have nowhere to actually go.”
Smyth herself spent years watching grunge and punk shows at Sneaky Dee’s, where she met her partner, a musician. She acknowledges “disappointment” surrounding the uncertainty about the establishment and hopes the owners can find a replacement venue.
She says it’s possible the Sneaky Dee’s murals could be taken down and remounted elsewhere, but they would likely need to be refinished after years of exposure to the elements.
But as a muralist, Smyth is used to her art being more of a “transitory thing.” Weather, vandalism and the changing nature of cities themselves often means her work has less physical longevity than a book, film or piece of fine art mounted in a gallery, she says.
“I always made my peace with creating these works and knowing their life wouldn’t be very long. The fact that it’s lasted this long ... I can’t believe it.”