GREENFIELD — Western Massachusetts is often a queer place, in every sense of the word. In Greenfield, rainbow flags hang in business windows and community members freely express themselves without drawing attention or ridicule.
But the city became the center of nationwide attention this week following a Boston Globe Magazine piece on the lesbian bar, Last Ditch. The publication reported Tuesday that the bar came under fire from some of its patrons and supporters for easing up on its mask mandate and making masking optional on Saturday nights.
Online, the issue has attracted the attention of conservative social media and television personalities, federal and state officials, and progressive activists, resulting in millions of eyes on the downtown bar and city.
Last Ditch’s beginnings
Last Ditch opened its doors in April 2025. The impetus for opening came when the owners, Asa Rosario, Jackie Matellian and Sage Territo, learned that former queer bars and performance spaces like The Majestic Saloon and 10 Forward were closing.
The group started leasing 10 Fiske Ave., where 10 Forward was previously, hoping this space would lend itself to performances and community events, with Territo saying, “There’s something unique and cool about Greenfield,” in a Recorder story at the time.
Since opening, Last Ditch has hosted recurring events and activities on weeknights and weekends, along with drag performances, community dances — even a “Queer and Trans Olympics” last September.
Looking to be inclusive of immunocompromised people wanting to patronize the bar and its events, Last Ditch required masks of KN95 or stronger to be worn at all times, and patrons were told to lower their mask, take a sip of their drink, and then raise it again.
More than a year after opening with the mask mandate, the only remaining owner, Matellian, decided to make masks optional one night a week, citing financial troubles and a hope to grow the business. The bar posted a notice to the public, which read, “It is with love we inform our immunocompromised disabled divas we will be opening Saturday nights as mask optional to try out typical club nights with themes/hosts/DJs/full capacity.”
A performer and artist who goes by Soe Noire is a COVID-conscious activist who was quoted in the Globe. On Thursday, Noire told the Recorder that “COVID never truly went away.” He said that defunding public health programs, such as COVID tracking, and the end of mask mandates has put populations of immunocompromised people at risk.
Health officials say masking efforts can prevent the spread of Long Covid, a chronic condition that can occur after a SARS-CoV-2 infection. According to the Mayo Clinic, symptoms such as extreme tiredness, brain fog, shortness of breath, and more can persist for months or years after infection and cause long-term disability.
Noire said he understands people’s hesitancy to wear masks, but that airborne illnesses have not gone away, and masking is the best way to prevent transmission.
“The shutdown was very impactful on a lot of people, including myself. … A lot of people just thought we want things to go back to normal,” Noire said. “Long Covid is something that is disproportionately affecting LGBTQ and Black communities. People are getting long-term effects from getting reinfected again and again.”
Noire said, “The [Globe] article focused more on the extreme backlash than why they got the backlash in general.”
He added that he hopes the media attention will give the COVID-conscious community the momentum it needs to mobilize and further educate people why masking is still important, as well as media literacy and the impact of the narratives being told.
“At the end of the day, we’re still going to do the work,” Noire said. “We’re still going to mask.”
A business struggle
To say the business has been struggling is an understatement. Matellian told the Globe that they have been working multiple jobs and living out of their truck to keep the bar afloat. In April, the bar’s owners put out a call for help on Instagram and started a fundraising page with an original goal of $4,000, which was later raised to $12,500.
“Operating a venue is expensive, especially when prioritizing community over profit. Our owners work on a volunteer basis so that every dollar we receive can be reinvested in Last Ditch to pay employees and performers, restock product, make necessary renovations to the space, advertise and so, so much more,” the bar wrote in April.
As of Thursday, the fundraiser had reached 78% of its goal and had received donations from around the world, from Chicago to the U.K., in the past 24 hours alone. The bar wrote that donations will go to support $3,900 in unpaid rent, $500 for COVID tests and masks, a $1,000 industrial air purifier, as well as supplies, payroll for employees and renovations.
Current and former owners of Last Ditch could not be reached by phone, email or social media. However, Last Ditch did share on Instagram that the Globe story allegedly misconstrued statements from Noire, and urged community members to stop harassing Noire.
“It is neither productive, progressive, nor valiant to attack a Black patron. He has been a collaborator and performer of Last Ditch for a while, and he deserves to speak his mind about accountability and repair from the bar,” the Last Ditch statement reads. “There are so many misconceptions due to the disorganization of the Globe article. He did not call for the bar to be firebombed. Further, he did not disparage the owner for being homeless.
“As a result of this abysmal journalism, he has been getting additional threats, slurs, harassment, and is being reported to the police over something he did not do,” Last Ditch continued. “This is not supporting us at Last Ditch, and it is, at its core, anti-Blackness hysteria.”
Greenfield Police Chief Todd Dodge said Thursday that the department has not received any calls pertaining to the bar this week. He added that the situation has no impact on how the department plans to operate downtown as the Greenfield Police Department already has “significant presence down there perpetually.” The department opened a downtown substation at 205 Main St. in summer 2025.
Community reaction
This issue of profit for a space like Last Ditch and the economic status of western Massachusetts is something Luke Rotello, co-chair of the Western Massachusetts Club of the Communist Party USA, feels was missing context in the reporting on Last Ditch.
The Western Massachusetts Club of the Communist Party USA released a statement that it “strongly condemns” the article. The group called for solidarity among the queer and trans people of the region, adding that communities like Greenfield have become a refuge for queer people “fleeing the extreme right” for political protection.
The statement says the article is “not newsworthy, except in the context of upcoming midterm elections in which transgender rights are a central political issue, as well as a far-right national consumer base, which makes the scrutiny of transgender lives profitable.”
Rotello views this situation as representative of the “collapse of cultural life with deindustrialization” as economic activity leaves the region, adding that the article treats the people engaged with Last Ditch and this region as a “spectacle,” and that subset is not representative of the diversity of people and thought in western Massachusetts.
Rotello further explained how the news from this small community being picked up by national outlets comes as a side effect of the profit that’s seen in their consumer bases reading a story like this. He says the reporting goes in a “regressive direction.”
“I hope that the town of Greenfield is not being perceived as not inclusive or not supportive of Last Ditch,” said John Ward, owner of Greenfield Solar, a few doors down from the bar. “I’d rather Greenfield was the well-kept secret it had been before.”
During one of her frequent stops at Last Ditch after work, Meaghan Cuevas, a manager at Los Tres Hermanos Restaurant up the stairs from the bar, was interviewed and photographed by the Globe for the story.
“I didn’t know I was going to be the face of the article, quite literally,” Cuevas said, chuckling behind the restaurant counter.
“They made it seem like they were going to make the bar sound like a great place, which it is, but the way they wrote it, it was not what we were thinking,” Cuevas said. “It’s like a totally different direction than what I thought the article was going to be.”
Cuevas agreed with the owners’ decision to lift the mask mandate on Saturdays, adding that the bar is trying its best to sustain itself while relying on a few employees and volunteers like herself. She described the publicity Last Ditch received as a “silver lining” that will hopefully boost business at the bar.
“I hope it brings them endless business, I hope it fills their doors, I hope it brings business to Greenfield,” said Elizabeth DeNeeve, owner of a “whimsical alternative clothing store” called The Sparkle Cave down the street. “They’re micro-influencers now.”
Like Cuevas, DeNeeve supported her neighbor’s changing the mask policy for Saturday nights, calling the online backlash “trolling.”
“I felt so horrible for them,” she said. “They were being trolled and told that despite all of the hard work they were doing interacting with the community, that it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t the right kind of interaction. … I don’t think you should have to defend yourself on the town’s Facebook group as you’re trying to make your way as a business. People should just be thankful that you’re there.”
“They’re receiving a lot of undue criticism right now,” said Emileigh Evans, behind the cash register at Wild Roots, a lunch spot in Greenfield. “I understand [online commenters] being upset, but also, you can’t really force everyone to behave in the way that you want them to.”
City Council President Lora Wondolowski, who represents Precinct 8 where the bar is located, said she feels the nationwide media attention is not fair to a small local business, and she hopes this doesn’t impact its ability to maintain a safe space for marginalized communities, such as the LGBTQ and immunocompromised.
“I worry about their ability to weather this storm,” Wondolowski said. “We’re all trying to navigate a world that’s topsy-turvy.”
She added that managing a brick-and-mortar business in Greenfield in 2026 is not easy, and she thinks the bar has held great community-building events.
“I’m glad they’re a part of the community,” Wondolowski said. “We don’t want this to make people rethink making a commitment to this community.”
Other elected officials, including Greenfield Mayor Ginny Desorgher and state Sen. Jo Comerford, D-Northampton, declined to be interviewed for this story.
Suzanne O’Gara, owner of Alchemy of Avalon inside the Sweet Phoenix store, described the response online against Last Ditch’s Saturday night switch as surprisingly fast.
“I can’t say for sure if this is a wrong reaction or an overreaction, but it was a very quick reaction,” O’Gara said. “It was a very ‘let’s jump to conclusions and assume the worst’ reaction.”
As far as the viral story, she said, “it’s definitely not what I would hope we’d be known for.”
Like Ward and DeNeeve, Danielle Marie, owner of Sweet Phoenix, a shop with vintage and handmade finds on Main Street, described the masking change as a move the bar made in an attempt to stay in business, a challenge for many business owners along Greenfield’s downtown strip of small shops and restaurants, she said. She stressed that small business owners “have got to freaking have [their] businesses’ backs.”
“From a business owner’s standpoint, sometimes you have to make decisions that don’t completely go with what you started with, but to survive and to make it through this,” Marie said. “These people are trying to make it through the worst time I can think of since I’ve been alive, financially and politically.”
She called the online storm around Last Ditch “one more thing that’s dividing people in town and now even on a national level. [It’s] the last thing we need.”
“When you see all this and everyone fighting and especially gay people and queer people fighting against each other, that bothers me so much, because I’m like, ‘Do you understand how hard everyone’s fought to come this far with each other?'” she said. “We can either let this divide us like it’s doing and let the rest of the world see and use it as an example of division and how crappy it is out there, or we can let it bring us together and talk to each other, and be more open and welcoming as a community, and provide that as an example to the rest of the world of what you can do with this, instead of the hate and anger. Because underneath it, it’s really about acceptance and love, and the perceived lack of that.”
