Calgary Citizen Newsletter Thursday Oct. 31

Advertise | Sign Up

Good morning !

Our 2024 Calgary Citizen Fall Survey is finally live and we are excited to get to know a little more about you and your thoughts on the Calgary Citizen! The survey will be live over the next couple of weeks so make sure to record your answers so that you will be entered into our giveaway for two pairs of Calgary Flames tickets for the Nov. 19 home game against the New jersey Devils. You have until Nov. 14 to record your answers and we will randomly select two winners on Nov. 15 and you will be contacted by email. Thank you in advance for your support and good luck! Fill out the survey here for your chance to win and also help us make the Calgary Citizen even better!

👀 In today's edition:

• Peeking in on the haunted Alberta Hotel

• Judge approves pandemic lawsuit

• YYC leads in house flipping but beware

• Creepy houses and how to find them

Get your story told! Promote your business, event, or restaurant in front of 34,000+ engaged locals! Contact our team today.

WORTH KNOWING

⛅️ Today: High 4C, Low -6C. See the 7-day forecast.

🚗 Driving today? Check the current traffic situation, and find the city’s traffic report and road closures.

⚠️ Here’s the current smoke forecast / check Calgary wildfire and fire restrictions and the Alberta Wildfire Dashboard.

QUICK POLL

More than a century old, Calgary’s iconic Alberta Hotel is now a haunted wine cellar

Step back in time to the late 19th century and enter the grand Alberta Hotel, a sandstone masterpiece nestled in the heart of Calgary’s historic district, where the whispers of the past are said to still haunt its halls. The Alberta Hotel is an iconic landmark located in the heart of Stephen Avenue. Built between 1888 and 1890, the sandstone retail and commercial building played a significant role in the city’s rich history.

High society: The hotel earned its reputation as a gathering place for high society, and was one of the major structures built after the great fire of 1886 where flames engulfed the city’s Parish and Son flour and feed store. Following the fire, city council passed a bill requiring public buildings to be built with non-combustible material, and sandstone was a natural choice as Calgary sits on a sandstone vault. Many years later, there have been multiple changes to the building, largely to the interior in order to accommodate businesses such as The Cellar Wine Store, which has incorporated historic elements of the Alberta Hotel into its overall aesthetic.

Paranormal investigations: The Cellar has collaborated with Ghost Hunter Alberta (GHA) to investigate the building’s eerie history. The investigations have revealed varying results, with staff members reporting strange experiences in the original boiler room, which staff calls the “ghost room.” Bonnie Milner, head of the GHA, says sandstone is a natural transmitter of electromagnetic frequencies. The Alberta Hotel has been a site of paranormal activity for years, and Milner believes the basement area is where most of the activity is taking place.

An eerie past: The main reason the GHA was called in to investigate four years ago was because an employee witnessed a woman and child sitting on the floor in one of the storerooms. “She thought it was actual people in the building and started towards them and then realized she could see through them. Their mouths were moving, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying,” Milner says. Since then, no one else has seen the woman and child, but the paranormal investigators have documented activity in and around the area where the mother and child were seen.

History of gambling, prostitution, and murders The investigators have also experienced phantom smells such as lemon and lavender, while some have witnessed a hooded apparition and experienced electrical issues. Milner believes that the hotel’s history of gambling, prostitution, violence, and racism could have attracted spirits to the site. Between 1902 and 1906, there was a string of unsolved murders in the Stephen Avenue area, and most of the victims were prostitutes. “This was all completely unsolved. I couldn’t find anything other than a few news articles because nobody cared,” Milner says. “That all kind of lends to possible energies that can attract spirits or psychic imprints in the building that made us think it was worth pursuing.”

Read the full story here

Need to know

⚖️ Judge approves class-action lawsuit for Alberta business owners hurt by pandemic restrictions.

💸 Calgary leads Canada in house flipping, but those who do it say approach with caution.

🏘️ Spate of break-ins to homes backing onto green spaces prompts police warning.

🚓 Airpods help Calgary woman and police find two vehicles after back-to-back carjacking and theft.

👮 Police say a 22-year-old Quebec man accused of attempting to force two young women into the sex trade through violence was arrested last week in Calgary.

💉 Future of Calgary’s supervised consumption site to be decided by city council vote.

🚆 Green Line CEO steps down as Calgary continues LRT project wind-down.

💰️ Calgary's chief financial officer and corporate planning director replaced ahead of budget adjustments.

🚑️ One pedestrian dead and another hurt in separate crashes in Calgary.

This website lets you look up Calgary homes that have questionable, criminal, and paranormal pasts

Enter your home address — if you dare that is. It’s been around since 2013 but, naturally House Creep always gets a little extra attention around this time of year. The website is a crowdsourced database of thousands of homes across the world that have questionable, criminal, or paranormal histories. As of 2022, there were over 788 Calgary addresses on the website, including many homes that were home to high-profile murders. 

“Right around Halloween every year there’s a boost in activity. We have a lot of people that will visit the website and run through all the spooky stories they can find” explains Ottawa-based co-founder Albert Armieri. He and his brother Robert run the site together. “I think people who just tend to use it as a sort of a playful thing where they’ll dare to enter their address and see if their house pops up or if anyone they know surrounding their house pops up. It kind of becomes a bit of a good Halloween activity at that point.”

Some of the Calgary properties include the home known for the Brentwood Five Massacre, a murder from the ’70s, and random paranormal stories such as this. 

Where to eat and drink

🍴 Ricardo’s Hideaway: There are just a few days left to enjoy this Halloween-themed pop-up at Ricardo’s Hideaway until Nov. 3. Enjoy bloodcurdling decor, spine-chilling cocktails, hair-raising music, and more.

🍴 Partake Brewing: Partake Brewing and the National Music Centre launched a limited-edition non-alcoholic beer with musician Tess Roby. Enjoy this special brew while supplies last!

Have a food or drink suggestion? Message us and we might share it!

Things to do

🎟️ Lemon Light Up fundraiser: On. Nov. 14, The Westley Hotel and the Love for Lewiston Foundation is hosting the third annual Lemon Light Up event to raise money to purchase equipment for a child with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA).

🎟️ CUFF.Docs Documentary Film Festival: This year’s edition of the festival boasts 16 features and nine shorts over five days. The lineup has just been unveiled so check out the list here and stay tuned for our picks later this month.

Have an event suggestion? Message us and we might share it!

From our readers

That’s it!

Thanks for reading today. If you found something interesting, please forward this email to another Calgarian and tell them to sign up!

And before you go, we’d love to know…

We’ll see you back here on Tuesday, same time, same place!