A few decades back, veterans such as Les Waterfield hustled out of work on Friday, scrambling to beat the crowd to the Mimico and Humber Bay Royal Canadian Legion on Royal York Road in Toronto's west end.
They would pour out of factories, after a week of making Goodyear tires, Campbell soup or Continental cans, and head to the Legion hall, one of the many such gathering spots that dotted the city.
"There was a time when you had to rush on a Friday night if you wanted to get a seat," recalls Mr. Waterfield, a decorated air force officer and president of a branch where veterans have gathered for more than 50 years to share memories of a defining time in their lives, hoist a few pints, and play darts, euchre or snooker. "You sure don't have to rush any more."
Most of the factories are long gone in this neighbourhood. There's now a Cineplex Odeon theatre across the street from the Legion hall, along with a line of roadhouse restaurants. And the veterans are senior citizens, their ranks thinned by the march of time. As the crowds grow smaller, so must the number of Legion halls.
In a saga that will probably play out around many of the 31 other Legion buildings dotting Toronto, the Mimico branch was sold this winter to a real-estate developer for just under $1-million. The building will be turned into office space. When the doors close for the last time in September, the branch's 230 members will be forced to travel about 15 minutes east, to the Sir Winston Spencer Churchill branch, to share a pint and memories with fellow vets.
"We just weren't paying our way," Mr. Waterfield says. The hall lost between $40,000 and $50,000 a year, for several years. A line of credit got the hall through one financial crisis. Then, the bank line was increased, and bumped up again. Late last year, it became clear that this legion would have to amalgamate with another, and sell its home to survive.
For Dennis Monk, 84, who spent four years of the Second World War training soldiers at Camp Borden near Barrie, closing the Mimico branch near his home will bring an end to the highlight of his day.
"I go down for an hour or two every afternoon, to find someone to talk to, and have one or two mugs," the widower says, adding that he has been dropping by for more than 40 years. "At my age, I can't be travelling around town. It's sad. It's very, very sad to see an end to my pastime."
Across town from the Mimico hall, a For Sale sign went up last year on an east-end Legion, the Baron Byng Branch on Coxwell Avenue. The building was larger than its 380 members needed, and did attract interest from developers in a neighbourhood that's big with the film industry. But none of the bids hit the asking price, and a suitable replacement couldn't be found, so the building came off the market.
Almost any one of Toronto's Legion halls would catch a developer's interest. They went up on major streets -- Bloor, Danforth and Lake Shore -- that have seen dramatic redevelopment in the four decades since many of the buildings opened. The Beaches Branch on Kingston Road is thriving, with more than 400 members. But it's sitting on a gold mine; around the corner small stores and a run-down bowling alley are being converted into upscale, $300,000-plus lofts and condos.
The real-estate moguls are closing in partly because the halls have few places to turn for cash when membership falls. The economics of a Legion dictate that its financial health is directly related to the thirst of its patrons. Annual dues start at just $15 for ladies, ranging up to a high of $50 at some branches. That nominal amount gets split between the local branch and the provincial association.
It is bar revenues, on $2 beers and $2.75 shots of hard liquor, that pay the bills, along with the fees charged for special events such as dart and snooker tournaments. With this underpinning, small crowds spell big trouble. Some Legions have become creative to make ends meet. One floor of the east-end Beaches branch is rented out to an Irish dance studio.
Overall Legion membership is down about 10 per cent in Ontario over the past decade, to 163,000. However, the drop-off is far more severe in downtown Toronto, as the traditional gathering place of veterans and their families failed to catch on with a new generation. "Young people will join, come in a few times, but when it came to paying dues for another year, they were nowhere to be found," Mr. Monk says. "I guess they just dropped by for the cheap drinks."
Walk the neighbourhood around Mr. Monk's favourite haunt, and it's easy to see where the young people went. Across the street from the Mimico branch on a Saturday night, there are movies playing at the multiplex, beside a Montana's Tex-Mex joint that's pouring a rainbow of margaritas, and a Milestones restaurant with a decent selection of single-malt Scotch and beers from Belgium.
In the Legion hall, where a euchre tournament is unfolding, the bartender keeps only white rum and rye in his speed pourer. Ask for an imported beer and he's likely to hand over a Moosehead.
There is a small slice of Toronto's younger drinkers who buy into the Legion's lore, but it's not enough to support the number of halls in the city. "In bars, you've got to put up with the loud music and being hit on. I'm in my 30s, I've had it with the singles bars. Here, a single woman feels secure, it's really friendly," says Lynn Wilson, relaxing at the Beaches Legion hall with two friends on Wednesday night.
"Coming here tends to be a generation-to-generation thing. My grandfather was a member, my dad was a member, now I'm coming by," Ms. Wilson says. "The problem at many branches is not enough of the new generation bought in."
The walls of most local Legion halls capture both the past and the present for Toronto's veterans. Glass cases display regiment badges and pins. The men who fought in the stormy North Atlantic, the fields of Holland, the mountains of Korea are all listed on a parchment poster. Those who never came home have a red cross beside their names. There are framed tributes from governors-general and prime ministers, past and present.
In the midst of all the memorabilia, at the Beaches branch, is a blackboard that lists all the members who are in hospital, complete with visiting hours. The veterans are aging, and dying. They no longer rush to the Legion on Friday night.
"I've only been coming here 13 years, and I can't imagine how I'm going to say goodbye to this place," Mr. Waterfield says of the Mimico hall.
"We've got members who have been part of this place for 50 years. It's going to be tough, really tough, for them to say goodbye."