Last Ditch Bar, a lesbian bar in Greenfield, Massachusetts, is closing after a monthslong controversy over a brief experiment with relaxed mask rules.
The bar announced on Instagram Monday that it is “SOFT CLOSING effective immediately,” though already booked events will go forward as planned. Full closure is expected by winter. The owners said the bar needs “new owners ASAP.”
“We are SOFT CLOSING effective immediately, all BOOKED events will CONTINUE, otherwise we are CLOSED,” the post read. “Love and solidarity to all.”
The bar, opened by three housemates in 2025, drew national attention after a Boston Globe article last month detailed its decision to make masks optional on Saturday nights, in hopes of attracting more customers, while keeping the requirement in place every other day of the week.
“It is with love we inform our immunocompromised disabled divas we will be opening Saturday nights as mask optional,” the bar wrote in an August Instagram announcement.
The policy change set off a fierce reaction within Greenfield’s queer community, with critics accusing the bar of endangering immunocompromised patrons. Some commenters described the change in extreme terms, calling it a “mass disabling event” and likening it to eugenics.
“I hope your venue gets firebombed for robbing my fellow immunocompromised people of their Saturday plans just to scrape extra revenue from ablists [sic],” one commenter wrote on the bar’s Instagram post, according to the Boston Globe.
“People like you kill disabled people in the name of your own leisure and convenience,” another commenter wrote, while a third said, “Just say you’re being complicit in a mass disabling event and get it over with.”
In the wake of the backlash, the bar reportedly saw attendance collapse on nights that were once busy, as critics organized a boycott.
The business had already been operating under a model meant to keep it accessible regardless of customers’ finances, stating that “nobody will be barred from entry due to lack of funds” and that “poor and unhoused people are welcome in the space.”
An attempt to resolve the dispute at a monthly community meeting on Sept. 11 did not go smoothly. Jackie Matellian, the bar’s remaining owner, broke down in tears during the meeting, saying she was the only one of her original partners still running the business, was carrying a business loan, and had been living in her car to keep up with bar payments.
“We have put our lives on hold to foster networks of care, resources, and a home base for organizing,” the bar wrote in Monday’s announcement. “It’s time we pass it on.”
