Yellowknife (Feb 04/05) - The Gallery served its last beer Saturday night, and tenants of the building are unsure of what that might mean for them.

Richard Yurkiw not only owned The Gallery, but was the leaseholder for the three-storey building on Franklin Avenue.

Brian Hunter once gave The Gallery a big thumbs-up at a truckers and hairspray party. The bar closed last weekend after the building changed hands. - NNSL file photo

Marcel Charland, co-owner of Frostbyte Cafe in the building's basement, said they received a letter advising they would be dealing with Bellanca Developments from now on, in regards to their lease.

The owners of the Frostbyte Cafe and fellow tenant Chris Foreman of the Yk Actors Studio are still in the dark as to what happened.

Darin Benoit, property manager for Bellanca Developments, refused to comment. Richard Yurkiw didn't return phone calls.

Both the Frostbyte Cafe and the Yk Actors Studio will continue to operate in the Gallery building.

Charland isn't worried that the bar's closing will hurt business at the videogaming establishment.

He observed that Frostbyte's clientele tend to be minors, not drinkers. If the Cafe needs to move, it will, he added.

Foreman, whose Yk Actors' Studio encompasses the entire third floor of the building, wondered what the Gallery's closing might mean to Yellowknife.

"This town was always a bar town," he said.

Foreman thinks that might be changing, due in part to the ban on smoking.

In December, Yurkiw, who also owns the Gold Range, told the Liquor Licensing Board his sales had dropped by $512,000 since the ban came into effect in October 2003.

Rick Poltaruk hosted The Gallery's jam nights on Wednesdays.

On a Tuesday afternoon a few weeks ago he was told the jams had been cancelled.

"It's sad because The Gallery was an institution," he said.

Poltaruk said it's possible people in Yellowknife just aren't going out as much as they used to.

"They want something to go to," said Poltaruk.

"Say they want to go dancing. Where is there dancing in town? Way back when, every bar had six-nights-a-week entertainment."

The only bar left in town that still keeps up that schedule is the Gold Range, he said.