If you were strolling down Granville Mall on a Wednesday night in 1995, you might be surprised at the number of drunken college students stumbling around this otherwise touristy area of Historic Properties.

      Patches of urine and vomit darken the doorways of the legitimate businesses in the area unfortunate enough to be within staggering distance of the source of all this mayhem: J.J. Rossy's, a three story totem to discount drunkenness that sits like a fat, squat goddess near the end of Granville Mall.

      Walking up to the door you'll be accosted by a crew of dangerous looking bouncers who demand to see your ID without delay. Producing your fake ID, which proclaims you to be over the magic age of 19, you are ushered through the wood paneled door and into the foyer.

      Here you must either pay a nominal cover, usually a loonie or a twonie, or simply wave one of the orange or yellow VIP passes you have and be admitted free. The foyer has bottled beer and shots immediately on hand, so thirsty patrons do not actually have to make the effort to walk to the bar, but can start drinking at once.

      You walk up the stairs immediately on your right and pass the few people in the place who might be over 30: The vaguely pathetic folks who pour endless rolls of loonies into JJ's handful of video gambling machines. Finally you arrive on the second floor, which is were the action is.

      Arrayed atop the beer stained sofas and high, metal beer stained chairs are a significant chunk of the frosh of that particular year from Dalhousie and St.Marys. For most this is their first year of "Going Downtown" and boy, are they making the most of it. Plate after plate of semi-cooked 5 cent wings are brought to the various tables and washed down with pitcher after pitcher of $5 draft or, depending on the hour, glass after glass of $1 vodka and limes.

      The air is filled with a thick fog of cigarette smoke, and as the evening progresses the busboys run themselves ragged emptying a gory stew of ashes, chicken bones, orange-stained napkins and empty beer bottles into one of many garbage bags that will be filled that night.

      Classic rock mixed with current college hits blares through the room, making every conversation that doesn't consist of drunkenly slurring the lyrics into a shouting match.

      The gorgeous blond wait staff tries vainly to keep up with the demand for booze, but as each colorful tray of cocktails is brought and drained the demand seems to grow more frenzied, and the tone of the men at the tables increasingly ribald.

      People generally decline the shooter girl's wares (why pay more than $1 for a shot, if that's what shots are going for? The answer could lie in the shooter girl's attire) but you do see the occasional group sucking on the orange plastic test tubes she carries.

      After the last Power Hour is over, and drinks hit the ungodly price of $1.25, most people head downstairs to hit the dance floor, which is undersized, and thus packed to bursting with sweaty, grinding bodies.

      And when you feel the call of the wild, you can either go to the basement bathroom, which isn't as disgusting as the upstairs bathroom, but smells like an old wharf and has a large patch of earth directly beside the door where, by all rights, there should be tile. The upstairs guys is a vomitorium to be avoided not only for that reason, but also for the treacherous walk up two flights of stairs.

      After the place closes at 2:30am you can either pick up, get in a fight or head off to Birdland, the Dome or the Palace to wind up the evening. And what an evening you've had, a great time and easy on the wallet, easy enough that you probably have enough left for the Dome's exorbitant cover, a donair and cab fare home.

      Truly this place has everything you need.

      But that was then, this is now. It's 2002 and I'm told JJ's is finally closing it's doors. I haven't lived in Halifax since 1998, and thus have only been to the old place a handful of times over the years, but it really did seem to have lost some of it's charm.

      Maybe it was the age factor, as I am now beyond the average JJ's age of 19-22 (I learned this while waiting in line outside the doors one crisp autumn evening, as I watched the manager explain to an utterly intoxicated older gentleman why he wouldn't let him in without ID), maybe not, but the place had lost it's shine for me.

      That's saying a lot, since I went there at least once a week in college and never tired of the place, spending five nights in a row there one memorable week in 1997. The drinks were as cheap as ever, and I have still not found a cheaper place in the developed world to get plastered, but the clientele seemed to have deteriorated, and the place was half empty on some of the nights we went there.

      Also, our favorite waitress, who took drink orders from our group for 4+ years and who has probably now retired to live off the tips we left her, was gone. The Dome and The Palace have both had costly makeovers, while J.J.'s looked pretty much the same only dirtier.

      I'm a little sorry I won't get to walk the green tiled floors and hang from the green painted pipes which are slung from the ceiling one last time, but that's life.