Filmores is dead set on finding a new location. The city? Not so much
One of Toronto’s few remaining strip clubs says it hasn’t yet performed its last dance
At the end of January, Filmores—one of Toronto’s last strip clubs—officially closed its doors on Dundas East after 45 years of operation to make way for a residential tower. But that doesn’t mean the end of the business altogether.
The legendary club now says, via its website, that it is currently looking for a new downtown home. The city, though, is not so sure. Thanks to Toronto’s strict by-laws, adult entertainment establishments cannot exist within 100 metres of a residential area, within 500 metres of a school or place of worship, or within 500 metres of another adult entertainment business or “body rub service.” The problem for Filmores is that, these days, such locations downtown are almost non-existent.
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Howard Adams, owner of Filmores, recently told Toronto Today that city hall’s arcane zoning rules remain the biggest hurdle to finding a new venue, but he’s confident that he’ll prevail. According to city documents, Toronto allows up to 63 licences for adult entertainment clubs but has issued only seven as of 2024. After Filmores’s closure, a mere four strip clubs remain open in Toronto (compared with 363 that were open in 1980).
Though city hall has no official statement or policy to account for the strip club decline, Toronto sex worker and Hollywood consultant Andrea Werhun blames the city’s history of “puritanical” prejudice against adult establishments.
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Filmores sold its flatiron building to mega-developer Menkes in 2020 for $31.5 million. Originally slated for the 42-storey Elektra Condos, the site will now exclusively house rentals to better satisfy market demand.
