It gets worse.

Lately, the usual local media suspects have been all atwitter over the issue of violence in the Whyte Avenue, this after a slew of stabbings on the strip over the last few weeks, including one fatal one. The stabbings are, of course, on top of the regular and unreported punch ups, sexual assaults, alcohol poisonings, vandalism and public urination that has, sadly, become par for the course on the Avenue on the weekends, as assholes from all points of the compass succumb to the lure of cheap highballs and cheaper skanks, hop into their jacked up truck or dad's SUV and head on down for a little ultraviolence. (Whyte Ave's troubles and a solution to them is covered quite nicely by The Journal's Todd Babiak: Leduc represent!)

The only thing I would add to Babiak's concise and pointed column is that a greater emphasis needs to be placed on pointing the finger at the dirtbag motherfucking profiteers who are the real root cause of Whyte's decline and fall. Unmitigated scum like bar mogul and Old Strathcona Hospitality Association honcho Mo "don't blame the bars" Blayways. These pricks and their relentless pursuit of profit at all costs are the culprits, folks. Two examples: Blayways recently purchased the Savoy, a cool, modern lounge on a prime piece of Whyte Ave real estate. The Savoy was once the destination for young and well-coiffed hepcats, but its fortunes declined as those same cool kids grew tired of being called fags by the ever-growing douchebag contingent and began staying away in droves. So Blayways (who owns numerous local "boom-boom rooms") snapped it up and plans to transform it from an upscale martini lounge into a goddamn sports bar, filling a niche that has clearly been left empty by the no fewer than 14 other Whyte Avenue bars (trust me, I counted) that show sports on a regular basis. This development came to light over dinner on Saturday at Milan's, a charming little central European bistro that, we learned, has just been acquired by new ownership who plans on-wait for it-converting the place into a bar.

Is nothing sacred? (Don't tell me: I know.)More importantly: do these guys have any fucking imagination whatsoever? Is there anyone who could look at the Ave right now and say "Hey, I know what this place needs: a top-40 bar where people can watch hockey on obnoxiously large televisions. Betcha no one has thought of that." Has the thought of doing something different simply not occurred to them, or is the size and spending power of the douchebag demographic so large and so bottomless that the only way to make a go is to cater to the lowest common denominator? Lack of imagination or simple marketplace considerations aside, one thing is clear: Whyte Ave will suck and suck hard for as long as the booze merchants with their horrible homogenous vision are allowed to roam free. Yeah, there need to be seating caps, minimum drink prices, zero-tolerance and all that stuff. But I'd be just as happy going old school and seeing some of these fuckers (asshole patrons and owners alike) swinging from the cutesy decorative lampposts on the Avenue, their stiff, grotesquely contorted corpses serving as a chilling warning to others.