Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 19, 2013, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A4 THE Kiss Army is mobilizing and Ricky Zimmermann is ready to march into the trenches. Again. He's left behind $ 120,000 worth of Kiss memorabilia in his Winnipeg home, decked out in a Gene Simmons wig and high- heeled boots in homage to the band's frontman. The makeup is spot- on and ornate scales rise from his boots to his thighs. " I've told my family that when I die, before I get cremated you have to put me in my costume and burn me like this," Zimmermann said, standing in the lobby of the MTS Centre before the iconic American rock band hit the stage Thursday night. Seriously? " Dead serious," Zimmermann replied. Hotter than hell, indeed. But then the Kiss Army has been recruiting soldiers since 1974, when the band's first album debuted. All these years later, the troops remain fervently loyal. So Zimmermann wasn't alone. Darren Lehman was in line with his wife, Emanuela, and three children: Dayton, 12, Tessa, 9, and Sienna, 7. All had their faces made up in classic Kiss designs, emulating original band members Simmons, Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss. It was the first time young Tessa and Sienna were to see Kiss live, but let's just say they've heard the lyrics of Detroit Rock City and Love Gun for, well, forever. " When they were in the wombs they were listening to it," said Lehman. " We had the music on, we had the headsets on. By the time he ( Dayton) was three, he knew all the words to Rock and Roll All Night ." Added Emanuela: " It's in their blood now." For the record, the Lehmans don't just get out the Kiss makeup for concerts. " When we do this, it's not just for Halloween, but when we're bored in the house," said the machine adjuster. In fact, the Lehmans' bathroom is pimped out in honour of the band. The overhead light is the shape of a Kiss logo. When you flush the toilet, the song Rock N' Roll Over plays. They call their washroom " the hottest can in the land." Darren and Emanuela were high school sweethearts from their days at Maples Collegiate. When they were married 11 years ago, Darren and the wedding party arrived at the social in Kiss face makeup. Zimmermann can relate. Just last year, he and wife Krista renewed their wedding vows in Las Vegas at the Kiss Monster Mini Golf Course, which is adjacent to the Hotter Than Hell Wedding Chapel. The ceremony was performed by a Kiss impersonator. They have pictures and everything. " It was awesome," Krista said. " It was a lot of fun." Zimmermann installs flooring and has been working so hard lately Krista didn't have the heart to get him to put on her makeup for last night's gig. It's usually a family thing, including their three children. But then the Kiss Army has long been populated by generational regiments. Patti Kafka, a 50- something mother, was in attendance with 22- year- old son Brendan. " I've been listening to them since my 20s," Patti said. " Finally, I have enough money to go to a concert. I didn't then." Asked if the band had become too old for rock, Kafka replied, " No, because that means I'm too old. And I'm not. If they can still keep us happy, so what?" Indeed, there was no shortage of fans at the MTS Centre who were born around the time Kiss hits became classic rock. They don't care. " I like old school music," said Keara Chisholm, 16. " It's wicked." " It's the vibe," added Emma Marsden, 14. " It gets you pumped. Rebellious and all that." Craig Henckel would agree. Dressed in his Simmons outfit ( the tongue is real), he stands 6- 11. His day job is painting trailers. At a gathering of Kiss fanatics, he's a star. People stop to take his picture. One fan wants him to autograph his shirt. " If I walk down the street, I'm a nobody," Henckel said. " But if I put on 25 pounds of leather, makeup and wear high heels, women throw themselves at me. I'm not kidding. It's a blast." randy. turner@ freepress. mb. ca A 4 WINNIPEG FREE PRESS, FRIDAY, JULY 19, 2013 WINNIPEG winnipegfreepress. com NE072G213 � 2013. Sears Canada Inc. JULY 12 TO JULY 25 | www. sears. ca 2WEEK SALE PRICES END THURS., JULY 25, 2013, while quantities last. * On approved credit. Valid in Sears Department stores and sears. ca. Excludes luggage, cosmetics, toys and juvenile & nursery products. Selection varies by store. While quantities last. ON CLEARANCE SUMMER APPAREL, HANDBAGS & ACCESSORIES, FOOTWEAR & WOMEN'S INTIMATES With your Sears Financial TM Credit Card * . Or save an extra 30% with other forms of payment. SAVE AN EXTRA 40% great deals on clearance items like: MEN'S NEVADA � / MD SHORTS 11 99 With your Sears Financial TM Credit Card * . WOMEN'S NEVADA KNIT TOPS FROM 5 99 With your Sears Financial TM Credit Card * . R OOMING houses have been a problem for decades, their slow decline documented for years. Now, the NDP government has done what it does best: formed a committee. " We have a lens on rooming houses more than we've had in a number of years," said Housing Minister Kerri Irvin- Ross. " They are very much on our radar." The province has set up a new cross- departmental committee to tackle the problem, said Irvin- Ross. It's looking at how better to help tenants and what options might be available to bolster potential buyers or spur renovations. That could include offering loan guarantees to landlords willing to buy rooming houses but who can't get mortgages from conventional banks, which deem rooming houses too risky. Irvin- Ross was less enthusiastic about another idea housing advocates and researchers have proposed - setting minimum standards for rooming houses governing things such as the minimum square footage per tenant and a proper number of bathrooms. Irvin- Ross said the city should play the largest role in any such rules, and raised concerns minimum standards could ultimately shrink the number of rooming- house units, which are a critical, if maligned, ingredient in Winnipeg's affordable- housing mix. The committee may also consider properly counting the number of rooming houses in order to get a handle on the issue. Rooming houses must register their rents with the Residential Tenancies Branch, but the branch can't count how many have done so. It's widely assumed many rooming houses don't register their rents and fly under the radar. Similarly, about 185 rooming houses are licensed by the city - only 20 per cent of the estimated 1,000 rooming houses that exist in Winnipeg. It's also impossible to know how many rooming houses have been lost in the last decade to more upscale development. In Spence, a painstaking house- by- house survey by the Institute of Urban Studies and the Spence Neighbourhood Association suggests that number is 20 per cent. Several agencies and departments are nominally responsible for rooming houses - the city's community services, fire and zoning departments, the province's residential tenancies branch, its housing department, its health inspectors and many neighbourhood agencies. The system of rules and inspections is geared toward single- family homes and apartments, not rooming houses. The province does have a grant program for rooming- house landlords that offers up to $ 18,000 per suite for basic repairs. But only three rooming houses in the last six years have received funds, in part because the application process is onerous. Inner- city housing activists joke the application form is 46 pages long, and one landlord said the process involved 10 government visits to his property and an 18- month wait before he won a grant. The province was prepping a pilot project that housing experts hoped would address the bricksand- mortar issues of repair and renovation while also tackling some of the social issues inside rooming houses that can make life there volatile. At the last minute, the pilot project was scrapped because government cash can't rightly be invested in the rooming houses that probably need it most - the ones whose landlords refuse to follow the rules and get licensed and registered. " We were waiting and waiting and waiting, so we just did our own," said West Broadway Community Organization head Greg MacPherson, whose agency is doing outreach with residents of two rooming houses. " We're going to lose some of these places, and we're just watching people live in misery. There has to be a response." maryagnes. welch@ freepress. mb. ca Rooming houses ' on our radar': NDP After problem festers for years, government forms a committee By Mary Agnes Welch Rooming- house rundown How many are there? No one has counted. About a decade ago, a study by the University of Winnipeg's Institute of Urban Studies pegged the number of rooming houses in Winnipeg at about 1,000. There are 117 in the Spence neighbourhood and roughly 75 in West Broadway. What's the rent? Between $ 350 and $ 425 a month. The basic welfare shelter rate is $ 285, which might fetch a closet. How big are the rooms? Just under 170 square feet, according to an analysis of Spence neighbourhood rooming houses done by the IUS. That's a little bigger than a parking space. Why can't we just shut them down? Rooming houses are bottom- of- the- barrel housing for the poorest Winnipeggers, but if we shut them down or allow more to be renovated and flipped, thousands of people, perhaps as many as 6,000, would be homeless. It's too harsh to call rooming houses a necessary evil, but given Winnipeg's chronic and widespread poverty and its lack of affordable housing, they are necessary. The trick is to make them less evil. City orders CITY firefighters are about to relaunch annual fire- code inspections of rooming houses after a two- year hiatus, and bylaw officers have already started a crackdown on derelict rooming houses. The city issued 59 orders against rooming houses last year and could be on track to doubling that figure this year. Already, 47 orders have been issued. Those cover all the elements of the city's Neighbourhood Livability Bylaw. " Lack of repair, especially in the kitchen and bathroom. Filth. Bedbugs. Garbage is big," said Peter de Graaf, the manager of Winnipeg's community bylaw enforcement division. " Lack of heat." The city has started to do a lot more outreach to neighbourhood groups that know where the problem properties are, and bylaw officers already work closely with fire inspectors and zoning staff to ensure rooming houses don't fall through the cracks, de Graaf said. Chronic offenders get a ticket right away instead of an order and inspectors issue orders to landlords and tenants alike. " The Neighbourhood Livability Bylaw is a minimum set of standards that people have a right to, and those standards need to be maintained," de Graaf said. JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Fan Craig Henckel as Gene Simmons of Kiss at the MTS Centre Thursday. Dressed as Kiss, crowd licks it up at MTS Centre They were made for loving band that's still hotter than hell By Randy Turner Kerri Irvin- Ross A_ 06_ Jul- 19- 13_ FP_ 01. indd A4 7/ 18/ 13 10: 52: 32 PM ;