People Over Profit: How Co-op Bar Milton Parc Thrives
If you’re taking an evening stroll on the Milton Parc stretch of Avenue du Parc, stop before you reach Jeanne Mance. Enter the bar right next to the Alternatives solidarity organization, and you might find yourself in the midst of an intense trivia night, a bisexual speed dating event, or a local literary magazine’s launch party. Cooperative Bar Milton-Parc, more commonly referred to as BMP, is a cozy, couch-lined, worker-managed venue — home to all of these events and many more.
Decorated with vintage lamps, string lights, anti-eviction posters, plants, works by local artists, gay and trans flags, and kitschy couches, stepping into BMP feels like entering the living room of your queer friend who makes frequent trips to secondhand furniture stores. The space has a mix of couches in quieter spots and tables with chairs closer to the bar, making it well-suited for both cozying up with one of the many board games available or splitting a few pitchers with a large group of friends. Past the bar and the kitchen are the accessible gender neutral washrooms, which are truly an attraction of their own. Patrons see the white walls as a canvas, where you can now find Sharpie-inscribed messages calling for a free Palestine and a united Ireland surrounded by whimsical sketches of sailboats and mushrooms. In addition to all of the wall art that you can admire while using the washroom, the facilities are also stocked with harm reduction items, Narcan, and menstrual products.
From the 1970s until the onset of the pandemic, the space at 3714 Avenue du Parc was occupied by Bar des Pins, a dive bar popular amongst McGill students for beer pong Tuesdays, cheap drinks, and a pool table. The bar was purchased by La Société de Développement Communautaire Milton-Parc (SDC) in 2021, a nonprofit founded in 1982 with the intention of creating “a neighbourhood where everyone's needs are taken into account and where social connections and the solidarity economy are prioritized.” Managing 11 commercial and office spaces in the community, the rent collected by the SDC is invested into community initiatives, repairs, and mutual aid, rather than going straight into the pockets of a capitalist landlord. After purchasing the building, the organization put out a bid for projects to decide the future of the venue. Tal, having already worked with the Milton Parc Citizens’ Committee (MPCC), jumped on the opportunity to propose what would become the Co-op Bar Milton Parc. In drawing up the business plan and project proposal, it was very important for Tal, as well as for the SDC, to offer “an accessible community space for the very diverse community that is Milton Parc.” In addition to Tal, Eve, Mel, Ciaran, Jake, Evelyne, Nabil, Nyx, and Mal are the eight other worker-members who work together to run the bar.
In 2023, after endless hours of grant writing to secure the funds necessary for renovations, BMP finally opened its doors. Six months after opening, the bar then closed for eight months to undertake more renovations, namely getting soundproofed, revamping the kitchen so that it could be properly equipped for the solidarity meal program, making the washrooms gender neutral, and ensuring that the venue is wheelchair accessible. Since then, BMP has become a hotspot for just about any event hosted by organizers looking for an accessible and affordable spot with a large capacity. Events hosted during opening hours are welcomed free of charge, as long as they do not disrupt any of the co-op’s services. On Mondays and Tuesdays, when the bar is closed, events can be booked on a pay-what-you-can basis. Once word spread about hosting events at the co-op, the event calendar quickly started to fill up. The calendar contains a mix of one-off and recurring events, such as Queer Karaoke, a space for queer and trans Montrealers to sing their hearts out while surrounded by community members. The accessible booking structure has attracted many non-profit organizations looking to host fundraisers, provide indispensable services for the community, or hold panel discussions. For example, on election day, BMP hosted a combined election watch party and trans ID clinic with Juritrans, a legal clinic for trans people in Quebec, where patrons had the opportunity to receive assistance with legal name changes, legal gender changes and passport applications. The co-op has also opened its space to groups fundraising beyond the Montreal community, such as film screenings raising funds for families in Gaza and for the Gitxsan & Wet’suwet’en nations fighting to protect their ancestral lands from fossil fuel companies. Currently, the only event organized internally is Wednesday night trivia, which never fails to draw an energetic crowd, all competing for bragging rights and a free pitcher of the winning team’s choice. Serving as a space for anything from political mobilization to drag karaoke, the diversity of Milton Parc, as well as the wider Montreal community, are able to flourish at BMP.
Despite the struggles of keeping a business afloat while living in a capitalist hellscape, the BMP team does everything it can to ensure the establishment’s prices remain accessible and the needs of the surrounding community are always at the project’s centre. One way they stay true to their mission is through grants, such as one intended to address food insecurity that funds their solidarity meal program. The co-op also receives weekly deliveries from Moisson Montreal, a nonprofit organization that regularly serves nearly 300 local community organizations on a regular basis. Through these services, BMP is able to keep its community fridge stocked, as well as nourishing its solidarity meal program, a weekly, volunteer-run pay-what-you-can lunch aimed at keeping friends, neighbours, and strangers well fed. BMP has also opened its doors this month to the Bulk Up Buying Collective, a local organization combating food insecurity through its monthly distributions of non-perishable products, including local and organic products, at 25-50% cheaper than grocery stores.
Being a worker-managed co-op is also essential in the implementation of BMP’s mission of people over profit. Unlike most standard businesses, where one boss is making a profit off the work of their employees, all money made at the co-op goes back into the bar and its services, as well as guaranteeing that worker-members are paid a fair wage. As a result, BMP is able to keep prices as low as possible. On the drink menu is a typical mix of beers, classic cocktails and mocktails, as well as occasional seasonal and specialty drinks, such as a pineapple mai tai for the summer and a maple syrup whiskey sour during sugar shack season. You can pair your beverage with fries, poutine, a cheeseburger, or a vegetarian pogo with homemade corn batter, a fun spin on the freezer-friendly Canadian classic. To see the beauty of a worker-managed co-op in action, go grab a five-dollar pint of PBR during BMP’s Happy Hour, which lasts from 4 pm to 8 pm.
Another component of the co-op structure that sets BMP apart from an ordinary bar is the ability of patrons, volunteers, or any supporters of its mission to become members. When a typical business is public, the number of shares that each shareholder has corresponds to the number of votes they have to elect board members. So, if a business owner who is the majority shareholder wants to become the president of the board, they can vote for themselves and more easily become the board president. However, the principle of a co-op is that one person can only have one share, and therefore only one vote. The board at BMP, which oversees key decisions at the co-op, is composed of four worker-members, two user-members, and one support member. For just a twenty-dollar lifetime share, anyone can become a user-member, giving them the right to vote for their user-member representatives on the board, and democratic representation in the steering of the business. As a worker-managed co-op, the internal day-to-day running BMP also operates democratically. With no singular owner dictating the trajectory of the bar, the nine worker-members strive to maintain ongoing open communication and dedicate several hours a month to hold meetings discussing key decisions, standards of service, and ways to expand the co-op. Collective ownership requires lots of skills in compassion, communication, compromise, empathy, and dialogue, which makes it even more rewarding for worker-members to come together to achieve their shared mission. And, thanks to the co-op structure, the worker-members are able to ensure that democratic representation, community investment and empowerment, and food access are here to stay.
Having already become a successful community project beloved by Montrealers in the three or so years that they’ve been open, it will be exciting to see how the space will continue to evolve. There are talks about the co-op getting a pool table, because who doesn’t love playing pool on a night out? Although BMP’s slice of Park Avenue is almost unrecognizable from the venue’s days of being a McGill dive bar, the combination of cheap beer and a pool table would be a fitting homage to what the space once was. The kitchen menu will also be expanded soon to include salads and soups, just in time to combat Montreal’s impending winter. Because of the success of Wednesday night trivia, BMP would also like to start organizing more internal events, with chess nights being a possibility. No matter the era of BMP, the space will always continue to be a reflection of the worker-members, their creativity, and the reciprocated love they have for the Milton Parc community.
To learn more about the Cooperative Bar Milton-Parc, check out their website here or follow them on Instagram.
