Toronto – A group of investors made up of journalists, lawyers, teachers, writers, and booksellers will soon become joint owners of Toronto’s Glad Day Bookshop, the oldest gay and lesbian bookstore in the world.
“For me, that bookstore symbolizes free speech,” says Michael Erickson, an English teacher at Toronto’s Harbord Collegiate Institute, who was instrumental in assembling the shareholders, who include poet Marcus McCann, human-rights lawyer El-Farouk Khaki, community activist and spoken-word artist Kim Crosby, and former Pride Toronto executive director Fatima Amarshi. The group will take over from current owner John Scythes, who is retiring after 20 years. Scythes announced in early January he was looking for a buyer. A full-time manager will be hired to help with the transition, which is expected to happen in early March.
Doug Kerr, a non-profit management consultant, and husband Michael Went, a financial adviser with Ontario’s Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, are new to the book-selling business.
“It’s more than a bookstore for many people,” says Went. “We want to make it more of a community space, invigorate the store, do more events, host readings. Make it more culturally representative to all of the different parts of our community.”
Another issue the new owners want to tackle is accessibility. Glad Day has been located on the second storey of a Yonge Street building for nearly 30 years. There are plans to create a bookmobile service called Books on Wheels, so customers can request part of the collection be brought to a café, seniors’ centre, or other location for browsing.
Over the years, Glad Day has seen its fair share of uncertainty. Founded by Jearld Moldenhauer in 1970, the store made headlines in 2001 when it launched a constitutional challenge to the Ontario Theatres Act, after being charged for selling a gay adult video that had not been approved by the Ontario Film Review Board. In 2010, a Facebook group called Save Glad Day! asked customers and supporters to donate money to help keep the store open.