The new manager of Oasis confirms that the Davie St lounge changed hands Nov 10 but won’t reveal who the new owner is, except to say that a Vancouver-based woman is now its sole owner.
Manager Jamie Hogenson says Oasis is “absolutely” going to remain a gay space but remains tightlipped about specifics.
“We’re definitely going to be catering to the gay community because that’s where we are, right?” he says.
“We’ve got so many different ideas right now. Basically, we’re just working with different promoters right now — nothing set in stone,” Hogenson adds. “We’re just in the middle of doing some renos and stuff like that.”
Oasis’ former co-owner Vinnie Singh told Xtra West Oct 27 that he and his partners, brother Asish and Edgar Galvan, agreed to sell after they were approached by interested buyers some time ago.
But Hogenson says it was Singh who approached him about selling the lounge. “They approached us actually. Singh contacted me” around the beginning of September, he says.
Singh had maintained that he was reluctant to sell the space and had mixed feelings about the sale going through.
According to Singh, the new owners had some financial difficulty coming up with the money but managed to complete the sale.
Singh and his business partners took over ownership of the Oasis Feb 1, having purchased it from a business group called the Davie Entertainment Zone, which retained ownership of Score on Davie. At the time, Singh made his commitment to the gay community clear. “It will be absolutely gay,” he told Xtra West back in January. “It was a gay lounge. We still want to keep it that way.”
With files from Heba Elasaad.
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