La Tulipe announced Tuesday it will have to close its doors following a court decision that the venue must ensure no “audible sound” from its loudspeakers be perceptible in the neighbouring building.
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The absurd saga of La Tulipe continues. The historic Montreal concert hall announced Tuesday it will have to close its doors following the Quebec Court of Appeal’s decision that the venue must ensure no “audible sound” coming from its loudspeakers be perceptible in the neighbouring building, or even from its balcony.
The court’s decision partially annuls a 2023 Quebec Superior Court decision, which stated La Tulipe must undertake renovations to soundproof the venue to reduce the decibels emitted from its concerts and events so that they fall within borough norms, and ordered La Tulipe to pay damages of $1,500.
The building in which La Tulipe is located, on Papineau Ave. above Mont-Royal Ave., has been a performance venue since 1913. The current owner, La Tribu, bought the building in 2000 from Gilles Latulippe and began putting on shows there in 2004.
The case against La Tulipe is being brought by real estate investor Pierre-Yves Beaudoin. Beaudoin bought the building just south of the concert hall — which was until then being used as a storage space by La Tulipe — from La Tribu in 2016.
Beaudoin’s building was at the time zoned commercially in adherence with a regulation stating that a private residence cannot exist next to a drinking establishment or performance venue, but due to a bureaucratic error by the City of Montreal, the zoning was changed to residential following an application made by Beaudoin just months after purchasing the building. Beaudoin now lives in the building alongside tenants and two businesses.
The zoning error was only discovered by the city in the summer of 2021, a year after Beaudoin filed a request for a permanent injunction against La Tulipe due to the noise. By then, he had already been making numerous and regular noise complaints, leading to a series of hefty fines for La Tulipe.
In January 2022, just weeks after La Tulipe’s owners spoke out, the city initiated litigation against Beaudoin in hopes of rectifying the zoning error that started this whole mess. That case is ongoing.
A representative for the city’s official opposition expressed concern for La Tulipe’s future.
“We are profoundly upset that an error by the Plateau-Mont-Royal borough has led to a nightmare for this cultural institution in our city,” said Ensemble Montréal spokesperson Chantal Rossi in a statement.
The mayor’s office said it will do “what is necessary to accompany La Tulipe in its undertakings to improve the soundproofing of its concert hall.”
Plateau-Mont-Royal borough mayor Luc Rabouin called the court’s decision “surprising” in a tweet on Tuesday. “This interpretation of our regulation puts all concert halls at risk. I have called a borough council meeting Thursday to modify our regulations to preserve concert halls in the Plateau-Mont-Royal.”
So, where does that leave La Tulipe? In a heckuva pickle. La Tribu announced Tuesday that the Court of Appeal’s decision has forced the company “to cease activities at La Tulipe for the time being.”
La Tribu asked in a statement for “the decision-makers at the City of Montreal and the minister of culture and communications of Quebec to take a position and instil measures to correct the situation, thus affirming the essential role of performance, song, music and artists in a city of international reputation like Montreal. This decision ultimately forces artists into silence.”
“They’ve let some f—ing grinch close down a 100-year-old venue through some weird f—ing loophole, in the process destroying an ecosystem of shows that go through there,” said Turbo Haüs owner Sergio Da Silva.
“For a (city) that has decided that it cares about nightlife … for a province that pretends to care about arts and culture that happens in Quebec, this is an absolute failure and an absolute embarrassment.”