Student Attacked at Reggie’s

I Don’t Hold Anything Against Reggie’s: Victim

NewsChristopher Curtis — Published September 21, 2010

After a few hours of drinking and a verbal altercation with a stranger, Pinheiro had his face cut open when a stranger blindsided him with a beer bottle.

“I was outside having a smoke so I didn’t actually see the incident,” said Reggie’s bartender Victoria Forsyth. “By the time I came in, I saw [Pinheiro] covered in blood.”

Seconds after Pinheiro was bludgeoned, bouncers intervened and took control of the situation. Pinheiro was carted off to a hospital where a doctor stitched up his wound. Police arrested his assailant shortly after the attack.

“This isn’t the typical freshman experience,” said Pinheiro, a first-year Concordia student who came to Montreal from Providence, R.I. “But I certainly don’t hold anything against Reggie’s. It’s a bar and stuff like this happens. They handled the situation really well.”

Although physical altercations are a relatively common occurrence at Montreal bars, Concordia Student Union’s VP Finance Zhuo Ling, claimed the university’s administration might use the incident to try and shut down the student-run bar. Ling claimed a report was being written about the history of events at Reggie’s to shutter the space.

When asked about the attack, Concordia spokesperson Chris Mota said she hadn’t even heard of it.

“If the attacker was a Concordia student, there will be serious repercussions from the university,” said Mota. “But Reggie’s is a student bar and we aren’t trying to shut it down.”

Zhuo’s claims also shocked Reggie’s staff.

“Obviously we take something like this very seriously,” said Reggie’s bartender Shane Neville. “But to shut the bar down would be an overreaction. We do the best we can to prevent this sort of thing. But it’s a bar, I’ve worked at other bars and these sorts of things happen.

“We do the best we can to prevent this sort of thing. But it’s a bar. I’ve worked at other bars and these sorts of things happen.”
-Shane Neville,
Reggie’s Bartender,

Some guy looks at someone’s girlfriend the wrong way and then they get into it.”

On a typical Thursday night, students line up outside the bar and onto Mackay Street to get into to Reggie’s.
Beer is cheap and the crowd is generally boisterous off $2 bottles of Mooshead.

Unlike every other night of the week, Reggie’s staffs its bar with a handful of bouncers and half a dozen bartenders.
“We always keep a close eye on things on Thursdays,” said Forsyth. “And usually it’s just a really fun night.”

This article originally appeared in Volume 31, Issue 06, published September 21, 2010.