A financially struggling bar in Greenfield, Massachusetts, has become the target of intense online hostility and a customer boycott after its owners eased a mask requirement for a single night each week.
Last Ditch Bar, which caters to the local queer community and opened in 2025, announced on Aug. 31 that masks would become optional on Saturdays only.
The bar kept its mask mandate fully intact for every other operating day.
Greenfield has not logged a COVID case in months, yet the announcement set off an immediate firestorm among the bar’s own patron base.
Social media commenters accused the owners of endangering immunocompromised community members and reached for extreme rhetoric to condemn the change.
According to the Boston Globe, one commenter wrote, “I hope your venue gets firebombed for robbing my fellow immunocompromised people of their Saturday plans just to scrape extra revenue from ablists [sic].”
A second commenter wrote, “People like you kill disabled people in the name of your own leisure and convenience.”
A third told the bar, “Just say you’re being complicit in a mass disabling event and get it over with.”
The bar entered the controversy already on shaky financial footing.
Its published house rules state, “Nobody will be barred from entry due to lack of funds,” and “Poor and unhoused people are welcome in the space.”
The original mask mandate had been presented by ownership as a safeguard against ableism and a protection for immunocompromised customers.
Three people co-owned the bar when the policy shifted. One owner performs in drag and uses it/its pronouns, while another has since left to attend clown school.
All three had fallen behind on business expenses and were unable to draw paychecks or pay staff members before the Saturday change was rolled out.
Ownership’s Instagram announcement read, “It is with love we inform our immunocompromised disabled divas we will be opening Saturday nights as mask optional.”
Facing swift criticism, management posted an apology stating, “We are sorry for our passive and dismissive tone of our change to the norms and schedule impacting the most intersectional of us.”
The apology drew fresh criticism for failing to include descriptive alt text for visually impaired readers.
One commenter responded, “This is not an accessible post. It indicates the lack of care or interest in Disability intersectionality.”
Bar leadership scheduled a community meeting for Sept. 11 in an attempt to resolve the dispute.
The gathering combined in-person attendees with participants joining remotely via Zoom, and virtual comments were read aloud to the room throughout the meeting.
The meeting grew tense after an in-person attendee, who works as a therapist, said she wished everyone could gather together in the same space.
Critics accused the meeting’s mediator of favoring in-person voices over remote ones, with one writing, “It’s messed up that the mediator is dismissing those attending virtually. That’s not accessibility.”
Other participants objected to the therapist’s presence, suggesting she could exploit her professional license against them.
Another attendee wrote, “A lot of people are calling for an acknowledgment of harm and I’m hearing a WHITE therapist … center[ing] the feelings of a majority white and white adjacent staff.”
Jackie Matellian, now the bar’s sole remaining owner after her two co-owners exited months earlier, addressed the room in tears.
She revealed she carries responsibility for a $50,000 business loan and has lived in her car for six months to keep up with the bar’s bills.
Matellian told attendees she has worked four separate jobs while trying to sustain the business. “It was not my passion project,” she said. “I never really wanted this. I don’t think I’m doing a very good job.”
Her emotional remarks drew a harsh response.
One attendee said, “You chose to use your time to spill tears and center your feelings. This is incredibly racist and deflecting behavior.”
The bar’s situation has continued to deteriorate since the meeting.
Matellian has fallen behind on rent, and the property’s landlord demanded a $3,900 payment by the end of September.
Business has not rebounded on the mask-optional Saturdays that sparked the uproar.
The bar has sat largely empty on recent weekends despite continuing to offer drink specials and DJ sets that once pulled in larger crowds.
On one recent Saturday, a lone customer near midnight suggested a Lady Gaga-themed event might draw people back in.
A bartender working that night dismissed the idea, saying, “Gaga is canceled. Gaga is Zionist.”
No further changes to the mask policy or updates on the bar’s finances have been announced beyond the landlord’s rent demand.
