Gerry Laing tucked behind the bizarre bar that’s been his home away from home since 1970

Credit: Darshan Stevens

Beer, Peanuts and Rubber Chickens

Four decades at Big Bad John’s means iconic local beerslinger Gerry Laing wins bartender of the year, after year, after . . .

Tucked behind the tiny bar, a six-foot-two barkeep serves brews and booze to an eclectic crew in a space no bigger than his living room. It’s late spring in Big Bad John’s, but it feels like summertime in a sock—or a bra, more likely. A Swedish man fails to impress a woman with his broken-English beat poetry while his Scandinavian comrades smell her hair behind her back. When she finally leaves the conversation and a group of intensely happy, middle-aged Australians comment on the praise for her hygiene, she barely lifts a brow. Neither would the barkeep, Gerry Laing, who has seen just about everyone, from everywhere, do everything in these cozy quarters over the past four decades. People in this bar mostly follow the rules, which are few: don’t do anything too outwardly illegal, hang your brassiere from the ceiling and write on the wall if you have to—but for god’s sake, shuck your peanuts onto the floor. If there’s one rule that Laing has established over the last 39 years, it’s that there’s NO THROWING PEANUTS.

The other side of the bar

Gerry Laing started as a “banquet boy” in the downstairs cabaret of Victoria’s historic Strathcona Hotel in 1968, where he served after school for $1.25 an hour and was quick to move up and bartend at Big Bad John’s. Quick, as in the day the legal drinking age in B.C. was lowered to 19 and as soon as he was old enough: April 15, 1970. He’s been serving drinks and pulling gags at the corner of Douglas and Courtney ever since.

“I’ve worked about 1,800 Friday nights,” Laing says. “That’s about five years of Friday nights. If you ended up putting all the drinks together, they would go from here past Campbell River.”

Laing is as much a part of the Strath as anyone in the building’s 98 year history. Barney Olson bought the hotel in 1946 and by that time it had already been home to office space and officer’s barracks during the First World War. Barney’s sons, Keith and John, entered the family business which had evolved to include a cocktail lounge, the Strathcona Room, by 1954—the year that B.C.’s post-prohibition liquor laws were slackened. Eight years later, the World’s Fair and countless tourism dollars converged in Seattle and presented the Olsons with a major business opportunity—if they could draw the patrons north. Their solution: Big Bad John’s, Victoria’s one and only hillbilly bar.

Walk in past the “Sorry We’re Open” sign. Ensconce yourself in a corner covered in business cards, telephone numbers and scrawled messages. Feel Johnny Paycheck’s “Take This Job and Shove It” reverberate through your bones. Devour a bowl of peanuts and wash them down with the cool draft special, served from a man whose overalls are patched with duct tape. Try to count the dollar bills blanketing the ceiling, or the bras dangling from it. Don’t be frightened when a synthetic creature crashes down on your head, and stop wondering if that’s a real water buffalo skull mounted to the wall. It doesn’t matter. It’s all part of the unmistakable atmosphere that is Big Bad John’s.

An ornamental pot-belly stove used to be a part of this atmosphere. On one of those 1,800 Friday nights, a fire was ignited in the faux appliance whose pipe went directly into the wall. When hi-ball glasses of water were failing to fight the flames, somebody finally called the fire department.

“The fire engines came and everybody just kept drinking,” Laing says. “[The firemen] didn’t say ‘clear the place’ or anything.”

That was long ago, back when the staff at BBJ’s wasn’t so mindful about fire-safety standards. Laing and the guys were known to slip toilet paper into the back pocket of someone taking a bathroom break and set it ablaze in the middle of the bar. The paper would burn right up and give the quenched patron a hot shock.

“We were always on the verge of getting closed because of fire regulations,” admits Laing. “This was years ago; there are no fires now.”

Sometimes the flare-ups were in even more unlikely places, like atop Laing’s hat while he bartended. “When I had a candle on my head, I didn’t have to move much—a step here and a step there because it was all bottled beer. It stayed lit the whole night. You would go through maybe two candles a night.”

It takes a little coaxing to get these stories out of Laing, since the last thing he wants to do is incriminate his beloved place of employment with some decades-old shenanigans. But once he begins to reminisce, he himself illuminates and it’s hard to tell if the raw outpouring of emotion that follows is laughter or tears.

Laing doesn’t credit himself with creating the reputation that BBJ’s has today. Countless devotees regularly travel from across the street and around the globe to throw back a pint and catch up with the local legend, but you’d never hear him play up his popularity. He deflects most compliments and gives props to the staff from ’62 to ’70 who worked hard to establish the bar’s name. Laing remembers riding his bike past BBJ’s entrance and hearing the music and excitement from inside—likely initiated by Jethro, one of the bar’s original bartenders and a bit of a role model to Laing. Then there were people like Charlie Peterson, who went from employee to patron halfway through the evening.

“He worked there a couple of years,” Laing laughs, “but something happened during his shift and he said ‘I quit’ and went up to the bar and started drinking. People still ask about some of those bartenders from before I got there.”

Character emanates from the names alone of former BBJ employees: JJ, Nips, Smitty, a fellow named Tildon who used to serve on roller skates. Laing is simply continuing a tradition that was started by Jethro and company—one that includes being terminated multiple times.

“I’ve been fired from the hotel three times,” Laing says plainly. He once climbed into the window of a private wedding reception and was met by one of his bosses, John Olson. That move was grounds enough for Olson to terminate Laing. Luckily, however, Keith Olson and the rest of the management liked him enough to hire him back. Still, years later John keeps an eye on Laing.

“He’s like 78 years old,” Laing says. “When I saw him out in front of the hotel . . . I went up and said ‘Hi, Mr. Olson’ and he said ‘You’re fired.’”

Despite his run-ins with John Olson, Laing has remained a long-time ambassador of BBJ’s legacy of uniqueness and individuality. Everything in the place is 100 percent genuine. Sure, the place may be gimmicky, but it’s based on honesty, not trend—and that’s why it works. The bartenders’ propensity for turning the clock on the wall backward at closing time doesn’t hurt either.

Closing time?

The next generation of Olsons—Keith’s sons, Kirk, Craig and Grant—have long since taken over running the Strathcona machine, and it’s not likely that Laing will be let go any time soon.

“Gerry, he’s just a beauty,” Grant says. “He can do some things that are sneaky, but he’s as honest as the day is long. A much-loved fellow we treasure.”

Grant speaks fondly of Laing’s talents, including the ease at which he remembers one-time customers’ names from the ’70s and his ability to kick a frying pan attached to the ceiling of BBJ’s. (Grant admits to trying and missing by several feet.) Perhaps it was the circumstances under which they met that set the tone for their friendly working relationship—Laing served refreshments at Grant’s 10th birthday party.

The often joyous and carefree past of the Strath seems to be a favourite topic of all those who have been affected by the building that Grant calls “Victoria’s Entertainment Centre.” This inevitably raises the question: what about the future?

“So many things have to work for it to carry on,” says Grant. “Historically, everything unravels after the third generation. The pie of people [running the business] gets bigger and the business stays the same.”

So far the Olson family has been able to avoid demise like those of the Eaton and Woodward families, whose businesses fell apart sometime after the third generations took hold. The Olsons have reinvented the Strath year after year, without altering too much the heart of the business—or BBJ’s. Outside of its hotel rooms, the Strath has been home to the Old Forge, where local success David Foster once played (and was fired, so Laing’s not alone); the Sting, Victoria’s first disco; the Forge, an updated version of the Old Forge Cabaret, which was formerly a bowling alley; the Cuckoo’s Nest, namesake of the famed Nicholson flick; and Legends, the club inspired by legendary celebrities of all kinds. But don’t forget about Ivy’s, the Pit and Barney’s Hideaway . . . the list could go on.

In 1990 the Olsons renovated retail space they had formerly rented out and made way for the massive Sticky Wicket pub. Element nightclub opened up downstairs in 2007 and put the nearly hundred-year-old building back on the map as a hot spot for Victoria’s clubbing crowd. And yet, peek your head inside BBJ’s and you’ll experience the same décor, same tunes and same contented man behind the bar, relying on the same jokes.

“Some days I wish we just had Big Bad John’s,” Grant says. “It’s one of a kind. One of those places you can go whether you’re in your suit or your construction gear.”

According to Grant, BBJ’s is becoming a popular spot to bring mothers-in-law. There, they’ll have a rubber chicken dropped in their laps by a fishing line pulley system commanded from behind the bar. It also has a reputation as a celebrity watering hole and has hosted the likes of Pamela Anderson and Keifer Sutherland, but BBJ’s roughneck ways don’t change to accommodate the thirsty famous.

Laing has passed his respect for BBJ’s down to his children—all three of whom have been employed by the Strath at one point. His eldest daughter Joanie, who now bartends at the Sticky Wicket and BBJ’s, started out coat-checking in Legends—the same place where Laing’s son Michael worked as a busser. His younger daughter Emily spent a summer working at the Sticky Wicket’s rooftop patio and admits that as a child she was apprehensive about telling people that her father was a bartender because of the stigma attached to the position. Some kids’ fathers were doctors, some lawyers, but was it all right to have a parent passionate about an unconventional career? As soon as Emily matured and realized that her dad had some local celebrity status, her opinion changed drastically.

“It’s one of the first things that I tell people,” Emily says. “‘Guess who my dad is? That crazy guy in overalls at Big Bad’s—that’s my dad!’ I’m really proud of him. If he decided to go in a different direction, he and my mom would have never met. It’s the Strathcona Hotel that brought them together. That hotel is in my blood.”

Between igniting toilet paper, blasting air horns and devising elaborate pranks, Laing met his most influential return customer. Mary Ann, his wife of 30 years now, used to perch on a burlap barstool, sip a cider and hope that she wouldn’t have to take a bathroom break for fear of being beamed with a roll of toilet paper and the words “Here! You’re gonna need this!” Mary Ann, who worked serving in the Old Forge when the two met, still finds the BBJ’s antics hilarious and tells her side of every story with a smile.

Emily currently works at another popular downtown pub, but would love to pull on some overalls and join the team at BBJ’s one day, upholding the tradition of being a “crazy Laing who isn’t afraid of being them self,” as she puts it.

Laing’s been laughing alongside all the monkeyshines at BBJ’s for 39 years now and doesn’t seem to have any clear end in sight. He’s a sports buff and looks to legendary players like Gordie Howe when considering retirement. Howe played games that spanned from the ’40s to the ’80s—five decades. Since Laing started in the ’60s, he plans to make it past six decades of service, so hanging up his cowboy hat will fall sometime after 2010. But if you ask him yourself when he plans to retire, he might just meet you with another query.

“I don’t know,” he likes to say. “When are you gonna stop drinking?”

Some questions truly are better left unanswered. M

Five things you might not know about Big Bad John’s

• BBJ’s used to encourage patrons to trade their hats for drinks, which resulted in a hefty collection of everything from fedoras to army helmets on hand for other customers to wear during their stay. But a bus-load of women in town for a bowling tournament at the Strath’s old lanes partied in the head gear one night and walked out with it all. Ah well, back to paying with dollars . . .

• Or not—the bras that hang from the ceiling first started when a customer couldn’t pay her $11 tab and left the intimate as collateral. Before long, the place was infested.

• The bar was named after an original owner, John Olson, and Jimmy Dean’s 1961 hit country song “Big Bad John.”

• The BBJ’s hillbilly theme was only meant to last for that one year during the 1962 World’s Fair, but somehow never lost its charm.

• Someone once stole the dollar bills tacked to BBJ’s ceiling that are marked with names and hometowns of the bar’s patrons. The thief took them to the bank and attempted to deposit them, but they weren’t exactly “unmarked bills” and were returned to the bar, where all of the originals bills remain collected from over the years.