In 1982, Charles Khabouth survived a near-disastrous PR stunt with a tiger. Now, he’s using that risk-taking ethos to grow his Toronto hospitality empire in Miami and maybe Vegas, too
Brandon Barré Photography/Handout
“I’ve been going since six. Look,” Khabouth says, showing the text discussion with his business partner that began at 6:07 a.m. It was ‘82, and Khabouth had just one nightclub, and it wasn’t doing well. He was 22, still struggling to get by but at least no longer sleeping in his car like he had been four years earlier. Looking to get attention for his ailing business, he borrowed a 654-pound tiger from a guy he met one night and put it in the front window – behind glass and steel bars. Overnight, the tiger broke the glass window and started taking swipes through the bars at pedestrians.
As their largesse has grown, they have also had their share of controversies. There’s the noise complaints from nightclub neighbours over the years, the homophobic musicians that played at one of his music festivals in 2008, the $40,000 gold chain Justin Bieber says went missing in 2013 at one of Khabouth’s clubs, andin 2015 with a pastry chef from one of his restaurants who filed claims of sexism with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal.
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