Peg Newell plays at The 443 Social Club and Lounge and it’s the lounge’s last show until further notice.
“It’s actually pretty devastating," said co-owner Julie Leone. "We’re going to sit down and look at everything tomorrow. I’m not even sure about all of ramifications from this.”
Leone was trying to get through Wednesday night’s show before thinking about closing again. She was scheduled to host four shows this week - the busiest week since reopening on August 1. Instead, Leone is clearing the calendar.
“It’s a huge hit," said Leone. "I mean people don’t realize it’s very, very expensive to reopen after a long closure, you know. And this week, we got our beer delivery. We got our liquor delivery. We got our food delivery. That all happened before we found out about this.”
This week, the State Liquor Authority changed its guidelines on live music. Advertised or ticketed shows are not allowed. Music should be incidental to dining - not the draw, according to the SLA regulations.
The 443 Social Club & Lounge in Syracuse is closing indefinitely, because the @NY_SLA suddenly changed it’s guidelines on live music
— Trish Kilgannon (@trishkilgannon) August 20, 2020
The restaurant just reopened on August 1st after a 5 month shutdown pic.twitter.com/80FS7CdBX9
Luckily, this performance at The 443 is not ticketed. Leone spent the day looking for answers.
“There’s really no wiggle room on this even though we’re a very, very small venue," said Leone. "We’re a listening room style which means everybody stays seated. And it’s usually pretty mellow acoustic music, but there isn’t an exception for something like that.”
Leone was just getting back in the groove after being closed for about five months, and so were her employees.
“This affects them too," said Leone. "We decided to open back up, because enhanced unemployment ended and I was kind of concerned about what everyone was going to do just trying to live on regular unemployment, and now we’re back to that apparently”
Leone isn’t sure how she’ll survive another shutdown.