Booze News

Hammer (0:00)

All right, to say that there's a lot going on with this next story is an understatement.

Nigel (0:06)

All right.

Hammer (0:06)

Allison, hit me with the music.

Nigel (0:09)

You set them up and I'll knock them back, Lloyd. One by one.

Massachusetts lesbian bar.

Hammer (0:34)

Go on.

Nigel (0:35)

It has ignited fury. After it eased its mask rules for one night a week.

Hammer (0:44)

So first of all, yes, this is a gay bar, all lesbian bar. OK.

Nigel (0:50)

This is a Greenfield, Massachusetts.

Hammer (0:53)

But they have mask mandates still?

Nigel (0:58)

You could do whatever you want. If you own your own establishment, if you want to have mask mandates in your establishment, that's fine. And a lesbian bar in Greenfield, Massachusetts, has sparked community backlash after lifting its mask mandate for one night a week, one night, Hammer, because accusations of ableism and boycotted directly at struggling businesses.

Hammer (1:24)

This is 2020, right? I want to make sure that I'm awake. It's 2026 This isn't a COVID year, right?

Nigel (1:30)

This is the last ditch bar. An arts venue removed its mask requirement on Saturdays, just on Saturdays.

Trying to boost business, because apparently even the lesbians don't like wearing masks to their specific bars. Some members of the small cities queer community objected to the change. This is according to the Boston Globe.

Hammer (2:02)

OK, the paper of record, the respected Boston Globe.

Nigel (2:06)

I'm just going to read this here verbatim. Some critics accused the bars owners of putting disabled people at risk and compared the policy change to a mass disabling event.

Hammer (2:22)

What? Who are these freaks?

Nigel (2:24)

While wishing violence against the establishment.

Hammer (2:28)

So if somebody shows up without a mask on a Saturday, all of a sudden you're going to cripple people, according to these idiots.

Nigel (2:36)

They, this bar requires masks at all other times. Apparently, business isn't going so well for the last.

Hammer (2:47)

You don't say.

Nigel (2:48)

Last ditch bar and arts venue.

Hammer (2:50)

You know what I think it is, Nigel? The masks.

The other six days that they have a mask policy.

Nigel (2:57)

So that's where they said, all right, look, we're going to lift the mask policy for one night. And that sent people into an uproar.

Hammer (3:09)

I'm going to assume this is a very artsy, woke area of Massachusetts.

Nigel (3:15)

I guess.

Hammer (3:16)

I can I read you some of the social media messages that the last ditch bar got on its Facebook page? Please. This is what some people wrote after they said Saturdays is mask free. But all the other six days, you still have to wear a mask in twenty twenty six. Here are what some people wrote, quote, I hope your venue gets fire bombed for robbing my fellow immune compromised people of their Saturday plans just to scrape extra revenue from ableists.

Here's another one. People like you killed disabled people at your own leisure. Here's another. Just say you're being complicit in a mass disabling event and get over with it.

Nigel (4:04)

What is what are they talking about? Mass disabling, like not mask, mask. It's a mass disabling event to allow your customers to remove their masks. This is real, by the way. This is not a joke.

Hammer (4:21)

Here's another comment from their social media. Does COVID not disable people on Saturday nights?

And this user that wrote it had a profile of themselves naked, wearing a mask in their profile picture. So these are the folks that we're dealing with here. Like if I were a regular Democrat, OK, if I were just some lunatic leftist, if I were a regular Democrat, I would be furious at this stuff because this story right here is everything that Republicans make fun of. We will put all of you in the same category of these people right here, the lunatic fringe left.

Nigel (5:06)

Not only that, but this establishment is a far left-wing progressive covidian bar that realized that, hey, look, we require masks five to six days a week. Maybe we should, maybe, just saying, maybe we should take the masks off one day a week so we can make a little more money.

Hammer (5:36)

You want to disable people. If that's your response, you're helping Republicans get elected.

Nigel (5:45)

But this is, this is, this is a lesbian bar.

Like Hammer, they, they're a part of everything that covid was back in 2020 They have not progressed at all. And now they're saying, well, look, all right, we're going to keep the masks on six days a week. But one day, you know, just leave them off.