Gay bookstore that challenged censorship laws is up for sale
'Time to pass torch,' say Little Sister's owners
VANCOUVER– 21 April 2008. They've been bombed three times, received death threats and stood before the red-robed justices of the Supreme
Court of Canada.
No, Jim Deva and Bruce Smyth are not killers or terrorists. The soft-spoken Vancouver men sell books.
And in some peoples' eyes, Deva says, that made the gay owners of Little Sister's
Book & Art Emporium dangerous.
"Because we were (openly gay) and we were very, very blatant about being open. . . . We were threatening to homophobes," Deva says.
Only two years after the
store opened in 1983, the owners took on a fight that bolstered and exhausted them, lasting until just last year and challenging Canada's censorship laws.
After 23 years of fighting Canada Customs' seizures
of books bound for the gay and lesbian bookshop, the partners have put Little Sister's up for sale.
It's time to do something else, Deva says as he plans to get a choir booked for the store's 25th anniversary
celebrations.
"It's probably time to pass on the torch, hopefully, to some younger, energetic people who are willing to work with our store," he says. "I'm not in a rush. We're going to take
our time."
The fight against Customs put the store at the forefront of the battle against censorship in Canada.
Among books seized were Jean Genet's Querelle, Quentin Crisp's The Naked Civil
Servant, Joe Orton's Prick Up Your Ears, The Joy of Gay Sex and The Joy of Lesbian Sex.
With support from the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and writers such as Pierre Berton and Jane Rule, the store
wouldn't back down.
"I think it's our tenacity. We just wouldn't give up and came back again and again at them from every angle we could figure out."
But after all the court battles, Deva
believes Canada Customs has developed a respect for the gay community's literature and imagery.
"They know that . . . when they make a sort of pronouncement on a book that they may well have to defend
that. We still disagree with the process but it's certainly fairer than it was 20 years ago."
But that's not the legacy Deva wants. "Hopefully, we have contributed to the growth and vibrancy of our
community."
John Dixon of the civil liberties association thinks Deva is being modest.
He sees Deva and Smyth as liberators of the human spirit.
"When you look at the trial record of
Little Sister's ... what it was about wasn't just about gay sex, it was about the freedom, the right, to not only imagine your sexuality but to talk about your sexuality with other people."
Little
Sister's opened in 1983, its shelves sparsely populated with books. As they struggled to make ends meet, Deva and Smyth often slept in a room not far from the counter. With them was the store cat, Little Sister.
"Looking back, they were very good times," Deva says. "The secret is to enjoy part of the journey you are on without being overwhelmed by the stress."
In December of 1987, the store's
calm was shattered. Someone tossed a bomb into the teal-painted staircase, splintering the stairs and shredding the quilt of community-events posters that lined the walls.
A year later, it happened again.
The bomber was never caught.
In 1992, the restaurant downstairs, which Deva co-owned, was also bombed.
But it wasn't the violence that brought the store national attention. The store emerged from
the obscurity of a downtown Vancouver back street to national prominence in 1985 when Customs officers began seizing books.
Little Sister's legal battles began then. They continued until January 2007, when
the Supreme Court of Canada denied the store's latest appeal.
Now Deva says: "We're just winding down the last case and sort of saying: `We give in.'
"It was an interesting journey. It was
also difficult to run a business at the time we were trying to mount this huge court case."
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