According to court documents obtained by the National Post, a late-night lounge within the bankrupt Vancouver Trump Hotel was turned into a bustling hotspot for criminal activity, particularly organized crime, before being shut down.

The light-night criminal hotspot lounge, which occupied 9,000 square feet on the 15th floor of the failing Trump International Hotel and Tower, was open 24 hours a day. The Ivy Rosé Lounge, as it was named, promised a “unparalleled entertainment experience every weekend. Come indulge on our gourmet food menu, craft cocktails and décor while we ensure the highest level of safety and social distancing.”

However, things were not as glitzy as the hotel had made them out to be. According to the National Post, “Vancouver police informed the hotel on Feb. 25 that it had responded to 43 calls related to the Ivy since June, including two involving weapons, four public-health breaches, two fights, and two assaults.”

The club had apparently become “a preferred destination for gang members and people involved in organized crime,” according to the police, who had contacted hotel management.

The hotel first opened in 2017, only to close and file bankruptcy in August, bringing the establishment to a halt after such a little existence, resulting in litigation and a disclosure that shed some light on what was going on within the hotel.

The Post says, “there was also another, less-savory side to the bar, court documents allege. Police showed up repeatedly to respond to fights and other disturbances, COVID rules were routinely flouted, and in the few months after the Ivy opened last year, it became a known hang-out for the city’s organized crime figures, those documents suggest. There were even hidden cameras to warn staff when police or bylaw enforcement was headed their way.”

“It takes no more than a modicum of common sense to recognize that (Ivy’s) ongoing, repeated, and flagrant disregard of public health orders, liquor restrictions, as well as its apparent indifference (to put it at its most generous) towards the clientele it allowed to frequent the licensed area would negatively affect the reputation of the property and the hotel,” wrote B.C. Supreme Court Judge Gordon Weatherill in a ruling on the eviction lawsuit.

It’s worth noting that TA Hotel Management, based in Malaysia, “had licensed the Trump name and the ex-president’s firm to manage the property.”