Save Maz!

   Historic Maz bar, home to an epic weekly karaoke evening (now discontinued) and pool tables and unpretentious chatter might be closing after decades of serving beer.
   Aging tough guy Peter White (cousin of the legendary WEG leader Dunie Ryan)'s wife (an Italian name which escapes me) is selling her bar near Marcil and Sherbrooke (just west of NDG Park) as retirement beckons.
  The building is not for sale but the landlord is said to be willing to give a 10-year extension to the bar operation.
   The bar was home to the legendary Ma Heller whose support of young West End soldiers during World War II was legendary.
   Jennifer Heller, a "white haired pin-up girl"came to Canada from Romania in 1930.
   In 1940 Heller launched Heller's Gang, an honour list of kids from NDG serving in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Ma Heller

   If you were a regular visitor to Ma's ice cream parlour and enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces during the war effort, then your name was hung on the wall.
   Her list of names got up to 726, 21 of them being girls. Sadly, 47 of those soldiers were killed.  
   Heller was supportive in all aspects of their lives, she'd lend them money for dates and received up to 300 fan mail letters per week.
   She snagged the first liquor license in NDG by noting an old English law dictum stating that weary travellers should have a place to relax. At the time provincial buses stopped in front of her establishment, so the authorities agreed with her logic and granted her a license to serve alcohol. The Monkland Tavern soon followed suit, transferring a license from another part of town, becoming NDG's second watering hole.
   When a strip club opened in what's now the defunct Empress Theatre in 1965, Heller bucked local disapproval and said that military veterans should have this sort of entertainment around the area
   Darryl Zanuck, was considering making a movie based on her life in 1945. Heller said that if any movie happened she would give any proceeds to support crippled servicemen.
   She mused about running for the federal Liberals in NDG in 1956 but it appears that never materialized.
   She sold her establishment in about 1974 and died in January 1984 at age 74.
   The bar was known as the Festival Restaurant for a period in the 1980s. It was later rechristened MAZ - spelling assumed to be an attempt to avoid language law inspectors.
  Fun fact: Peter White who does not actually own the joint, is known to be a fairly ornery character and is father to  namesake hockey player who suited up for over 200 NHL games.