‘We hope your venue gets firebombed’: The 'mask optional' night that helped sink a lesbian bar

Last Ditch Bar, a self-described lesbian bar that maintained COVID mask requirements long after pandemic restrictions ended, is shutting down after struggling financially — and its attempt to offer just one mask-optional night a week sparked anger from customers.“The Last Ditch Bar, wonderful establishment,” BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere comments. “You have to have a mask to go into this place. They were very concerned about COVID. Super woke, really crazy bar,” he continues, noting that when the bar had recently tried to host one “mask optional” night a week, the patrons lost their minds. "The kiss of death, many would call it,” co-host Dave Landau comments. “They said they were ‘complicit in a mass disabling event,’” Stu laughs, before reading a comment from their Instagram post. “We hope your venue gets firebombed for robbing my fellow immunocompromised people of their Saturday plans just to scrape extra revenue from ableists,” the comment read. “By the way, there had been no COVID, zero COVID cases, in this area for multiple months,” Stu says. “They now have some bad news. On Instagram, they said they need new owners ASAP or we close this winter. And now an update,” he continues, before reading their statement. “We are closing. We have put our lives on hold to foster networks of care, resources, and a home base for organizing. It’s time we pass it on,” Last Ditch began in the statement. “We’ve been fighting since the beginning to fill out the team, and we still don’t have a board/leadership to manage workers owned co-op transfer. We are soft closing effective immediately, all booked events will continue, otherwise we are closed,” the statement continued, concluding, “Love and solidarity to all.” “I think it's a good testament to the fact that no matter what you do, it’s not good enough. And that it’s always important to cater to people who want to eat their own party,” Dave comments. “Especially when you invent new terms like ‘able-bodied people hurt the immunocompromised,’” he adds.