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VANCOUVER — In the eyes of the B.C. Supreme Court, the Gallery Show Lounge Strip club in south Vancouver would “present a clear danger” to the public if its liquor licence were restored and it reopened.
The club has been on the police radar for years, and the court considered evidence of violence and alleged drug trafficking in its ruling last month that upheld the provincial liquor branch’s decision in February to axe the licence.
But owner Anthony Pomonis, who had petitioned for the restoration of the licence, says there’s another reason authorities wanted to shut the club that is nestled alongside a series of flyovers, and bills itself as a “visual and sensory masterpiece.”
“It was winning and it was winning loudly and the powers didn’t want that. They didn’t like that,” he said.
The ruling may spell the end for the club in Vancouver, but Pomonis says he’ll be opening a new club in Alberta.
And drug trafficking charges against Pomonis and a Gallery employee, who also faced weapons charges, have now been stayed.
The Vancouver Police Department said in a news release last year that the men had been arrested and charged after a 15-month investigation that began in December 2023 after a tip.
Neither prosecutors nor police will reveal why the charges were stayed in February.
“I don’t have any information on this, unfortunately,” Vancouver police spokesman Const. Darren Wong said in an emailed statement. “Why charges were stayed would be outside of our control.”
The Public Prosecution Service of Canada said it would be “inappropriate” to provide the reasons because “they are not in the public record.”
Pomonis said he had been unfairly targeted by police and government regulators, who wrongfully smeared him as “the biggest boogie man in Canada.”
“I’ve done nothing wrong except for put my faith into a system and think naively that I can just open up a business and be allowed to run it and feed my family,” he said.
Pomonis denied being involved in drug dealing, and said the amounts involved in the police action were small. Media coverage of his arrest had ruinous consequences, including losing his bank accounts, he said.
“They made it sound like it was a hundred kilos. And they never said, ‘oh, well, we never really, we never bought it from him, but we got it from somebody in the club,” Pomonis said.
He said he believes police “want to get rid of Gallery and erase me from the hospitality industry.”
The court’s recent ruling on an application to stay the decision until the club’s judicial review of the liquor licence revocation says the liquor regulator was alerted to public safety concerns by police in November 2023.
It outlined 94 calls to police in the two years the club had operated, which involved “violent incidents, including a homicide, stabbing and shooting in which two people were shot.”
The ruling says the club’s licence was cancelled in February 2026 for four main reasons, including Pomonis and the Gallery employee being charged with drug trafficking, an “established pattern of violent incidents,” alleged money laundering activity and inaccurate financial information.
Pomonis said the laundering investigation related to the club offering US$1 bills for patrons to tip performers.
He said nightclubs in the Granville entertainment district in Vancouver all have their issues with violence and drugs, and that Gallery’s location far from the downtown core meant it didn’t have the same support from police when trouble arose.
“I really think this is a piece about regulatory bodies and what they can do to a citizen if they don’t want you around. If they don’t want a business, you have very little recourse and they will drain you slowly economically,” he said. “We never wanted to be enemies of the police.”
Pomonis said he’s now hoping to replicate the success of Gallery with a new club in Calgary.
“We’ve brought 75 of the biggest hip hop artists in the world in the last five years. We’ve shown Vancouver a party atmosphere that has never been seen before,” he said.
He added: “Tell me, why do they call Vancouver the no fun city?”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 8, 2026.
Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press
