Swingers, the man said yesterday outside Edmonton city council chambers, are the gays of the 21st century. And the effort to deny a home to a local swing club is only further proof that they are a misunderstood and persecuted minority, he said. "OK, it's not exactly the same," said the man, who wouldn't give his name. "But there are a lot of similarities. We're being repressed based on sexuality. We're heterosexual, just a different kind of heterosexual." Well, score one for "different hetero" pride. Yesterday, City Hall's subdivision and development appeal board rejected an attempt to throw cold water on a swing club just off Stony Plain Road in the Jasper Place area. PERMIT APPEALED The owners of the vacant Jasper Cinema at 10120 156 St. had planned to lease part of the building to the 4-Play club, a members-only group, which according to its website, is "a dance and social club for sexually open couples and single women." But the landlord's development permit was appealed by the Jasper Place Revitalization Strategy committee. There's been a swing club operating discretely in the area for 10 years, several 4-Play members said yesterday. "We were pretty much invisible. The only reason they know we're here is because we had to move out of our old location, four blocks away from the new one," said Mike B. But now the secret is out, he said, "it's easy to target us as deviants." The appeal was based on the argument that there wasn't enough parking, but it became clear at the hearing yesterday that, for most of the people opposed to the club, parking was just an excuse. Les Halpert, a senior member of an accounting firm next door to the theatre, said that having a swing club in the theatre would undo 15 years of hard work to clean up one of the city's roughest areas. "I'm outraged that the same city (that's behind the revitalization strategy) would throw this back in our faces," he said. Not rescinding the permit "would make a mockery of all the efforts to clean up this area." He said that the staff at his accounting firm are already intimidated by shady characters loitering in the parking lot and alley between the two buildings, and the swing club would only make it worse. What Halpert didn't seem to grasp, however, is that the club hasn't opened yet and the loiterers have nothing to do with 4-Play. In fact, it could be argued that leaving the cinema empty, as it has been for most of the past decade, is what's attracting unsavoury types to his parking lot. Barb Busse, head of the Britannia Youngstown Community League and a member of the revitalization committee, said aside from more cars clogging an already congested area, neighbours would have to put up with "excessive" noise from car alarms going off, engines starting and people having loud conversations after the club closed. Part of the committee's plan is to put tighter controls on sex shops, massage parlours, pawn shops and bars as the area redevelops, but their blueprint for the strategy has yet to get city council's final approval. But one of the club's owners was furious that their neighbours would lump swingers in with massage parlours and assume that they're going to be noisy and out of control. "We're not the dregs of society," said Marie Guindon. "If this is what makes a small group of people happy and we're not hurting anyone, what's the problem?" She said the club has always been very discrete, quiet and well maintained. It's members only, she said, with no walk-in traffic allowed. It will only operate on Friday and Saturday nights. The development board upheld the permit, which is valid until March 31, 2011, as long as the landlord continues to provide the same amount of parking that it does now, including leased spaces from an adjacent property. Guindon wants to sit down with the revitalization committee so she can dispel some of the "myths" about swingers. "They need to get the right info about us," she said. "We're all about making our neighbours feel comfortable."