Mixed feelings on this. Yup, it was "hideous" and pretty grotty inside, but... if all these sorts of venues disappear in Toronto I feel like something will be missing. With this and the Cameron House on their last legs, and Lee's Palace undergoing some renos that will render it mostly unrecognizable, it feels like the Toronto of my university days is disappearing fast. I don't miss being hassled by crackheads at Bathurst and Queen, but the quick transformation during the past year (pubs replaced with Tim Horton's, Starbucks, now this CB2) seems unusually shocking.
But I guess everything moves on: I'm sure there's a new generation of other hole-in-the-wall places I don't even know about because I'm too old and uncool now, just as there was a whole generation of venues that disappeared before my time (the yorkville 60s folk cafes, punk venues in the late 70s, etc).