COFFEE POT CLOSED

To little fanfare, the Coffee Pot, the Latin Quarter pot-smoking lounge and
restaurant, closed its doors last month. After only a few weeks of doing
business, proprietor David McKenzie, who also runs the Duchess of Amsterdam
head shop on St-Marc, said business was so slow that he had no choice but
to shut its doors just before Christmas. "It's really too bad," he says.
"It's really disappointing. There was all this talk about it, but people
just didn't come."

McKenzie speculates that perhaps would-be patrons were afraid of being
arrested by police, a fear he says was misplaced. "There were a couple of
minor incidents at the beginning, just stupid little problems, but all in
all it was really good," he says. "The cops were cool, we never got raided.
They'd come in and do a walk-around, but they do that in bars now too."

McKenzie says he might try to open up another place, but on a much smaller
level. He wouldn't provide figures, but he said the Coffee Pot was costing
him "enough to not keep it open."