A Greenfield bar built as a COVID-cautious refuge for queer women is now fighting to survive a different kind of storm. Last Ditch, the only dedicated lesbian bar in Western Massachusetts, relaxed its strict mask mandate this month in a bid to bring in more paying customers, and the backlash has been swift, personal, and at times threatening.
The bar held its second weekly mask-optional Saturday night on September 12, according to reporting by The Boston Globe, after previously requiring every patron to wear a well-fitted KN-95 mask or better at all times inside the venue. The shift came as Last Ditch owed $3,900 in back rent and carried a $50,000 business loan, financial strain that owner Jackie Matellian is now personally responsible for paying off, the Globe reports. One commenter responded to the announcement with a message that gives the story its name: “I hope your venue gets firebombed.”
The bar's Instagram post announcing the change drew 442 comments, per the same account. Two days later, Last Ditch posted an apology, though the apology card itself omitted alt-text, an accessibility gap that did not go unnoticed among the bar's disability-conscious regulars.
A Space Built on Uncompromising Care
Last Ditch opened in 2025 describing itself as a place for dykes, transsexuals, gender freaks, workers, and their friends, according to the Globe. It welcomes poor and unhoused people, allows entry to those who can't pay the cover fee, and operates a free store stocked with food, clothes, fentanyl test strips, Narcan, and STI literature. The bar also bans police from the space, a policy first announced in September 2025 after local police reported that police activity near the venue during a drug investigation had prompted the ban, according to the Greenfield Recorder.
Matellian, a founder and owner of the bar, told the Globe that its mission is to create systems of care and action and aid. She is one of three original co-founders, alongside Asa Rosario, a founder and drag performer at the venue, and Sage Territo, but by 2026 she was the only original founder still involved in daily operations. Matellian said the other two stepped back months earlier because of pressures and health issues, a strain that has landed the bar's survival largely on her shoulders. She has lived in her truck for six months and now works four different jobs while also carrying responsibility for the $50,000 loan.
The Meeting That Lasted 3.5 Hours
Frustration over the masking shift boiled over at a community meeting on September 11, which drew about 10 people in person and another 10 to 15 on Zoom, stretching on for 3.5 hours, according to the Globe's reporting. Among the most vocal critics was Soe Noire, a Black gender-expansive lesbian performer and artist who lives about 50 minutes south of Greenfield and has visited Last Ditch seven or eight times. Noire said she will not return unless the bar has new leadership, and she also said a meeting request extended to her was disingenuous and racist, per the Globe.
Not everyone in the community sided with the critics. Melody Young said the vocal critics were close to the bar and disappointed by the decision, the Globe reports. Mixxy, who works at Last Ditch for tips, said the bar's early mask dogmatism was itself a mistake — a rare admission from inside the venue that its original, uncompromising approach may have contributed to its current financial bind.
Weighing Ideals Against the Books
The bar's dilemma sits inside a much larger squeeze on lesbian nightlife nationally. According to tracking by the Lesbian Bar Project, cited by Autostraddle, only about 34 to 37 lesbian bars remained open across the entire United States as of 2024, down from more than 200 in 1980, a decline driven by rising commercial real estate costs and shifting social habits. Last Ditch's location compounds the challenge: Greenfield recorded a population of just 17,768 in the 2020 U.S. Census and serves as the county seat of Franklin County, the least populous mainland county in Massachusetts, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. When it opened, Last Ditch became the first dedicated lesbian bar in Western Massachusetts, with the nearest comparable venue being Femme Bar in Worcester, which opened in 2023, according to GO Magazine and Discover Central Massachusetts.
Last Ditch had leaned on outside help before reaching this point, consulting the Massachusetts LGBT Chamber of Commerce, which offers technical assistance, financial coaching, and grant-support programs such as National Grid's $500,000 small business capacity initiative to help diverse enterprises build financial stability, according to the chamber's own materials. Still, the bar fell behind on bills, charging $10 cocktails while the Globe describes the venue as carrying ongoing financial losses. Greenfield itself had not reported COVID cases in more than two months at the time of the mask-policy change, per the article's own accounting.
What Comes Next
Matellian told the Globe she plans to co-operatize the bar, shifting ownership and decision-making more broadly across the community it serves, and she expects the masking conflict to continue rather than resolve quickly. Even so, she said the bar hopes for more repair than conflict going forward. Whether that hope survives contact with a fractured community, and whether the bar can outrun its debts, remains an open question for a venue that set out to be a refuge and instead became a flashpoint.
