A Western Massachusetts bar has announced it is closing, two months after it tried the most dangerous experiment in modern nightlife: letting people show their faces on one Saturday.
Last Ditch, a bar and arts venue in Greenfield, told followers on Instagram Monday, "WE ARE CLOSING," announcing a "soft closing" effective immediately, with booked events continuing through the winter. The bar said it couldn't fill out its team or find leadership for a worker-owned co-op handoff. It is now looking for new owners and says its equipment, inventory and assets are worth about $70,000.
The bar was famous for one thing. Patrons had to wear a well-fitted KN95 "or better" at all times, lowering it only to sip a drink, under a house rule the bar called "Lower, sip, and lift!" Which, honestly, is also how I get through Thanksgiving with my in-laws.
Then, on Aug. 31, the bar posted that Saturday nights would go mask-optional so it could try "typical club nights" at full capacity. Just one night. Just to keep the lights on.
Reader, this was the Red Wedding.
According to the Boston Globe, the comment thread ballooned to 442 comments. The bar was called ableist. It was called eugenicist. One commenter wrote that they hoped the venue got firebombed, which is a bold position to take in defense of public health. Greenfield, the Globe noted, hadn't reported a COVID case in more than two months. The bar was being accused of a mass casualty event in a town with zero casualties.
So management did what every celebrity does after a scandal. It posted a Notes-app apology. And here's where this goes from a Housewives reunion to a full season of Survivor: the apology didn't have alt-text. A fresh wave of commenters accused the bar of ableism for apologizing for ableism. The apology needed an apology. This is the first business in history to get canceled for its sorry.
Meanwhile, the people actually showing up were not exactly a stampede. One commenter said every time they went, there weren't many people there. The Globe reported that foot traffic slowed and some visitors said they didn't have the cover fee, and the bar let them in anyway. So the business model was: require medical-grade masks, run four air purifiers, sanitize nightly, and let people in for free. That's not a bar. That's a clinic with a jukebox.
It's like opening a steakhouse, posting that you'll allow one vegetarian night a week, and getting firebomb threats from the vegetarians who were never going to order a steak in the first place.
The loudest critics were never the paying customers. They were the comment section. And the comment section has never once bought a round.
So Last Ditch is closing, still mask-required Tuesday through Friday on its own website, which describes its basement space down a flight of concrete steps. Fitting. The bar spent 2026 fighting the battle of 2021, from a bunker, and lost to the internet anyway.
Soft closing. KN95 required. Lower, sip, and lift.
This article is satire. The Demorat is a parody news site; real facts are drawn from the linked sources, and jokes, invented scenes, and fictional characters are not real.
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