Last Ditch opened in April 2025 in Greenfield, Massachusetts, as a lesbian bar that required a KN-95 mask at all times. On Aug. 31, the bar announced that Saturday nights would go mask-optional so it could try full-capacity club nights. The post drew hundreds of angry comments, an apology, and a community meeting that fell apart. On Tuesday, a Boston Globe Magazine story about the fight went viral, and the paper's post of it drew more than 17 million views in a day. Since then, the bar has called the Globe's story "abysmal journalism," and a local Communist Party chapter has condemned the paper. The Globe has answered. Google has turned off review posting for the bar.

1. The Bar's Critics Say It Abandoned the People It Promised to Protect

COVID-conscious patrons say one mask-optional night pushes disabled people out, and the Globe story skipped over why they're angry.

A mask-optional night pushes disabled people out, the critics say. Soe Noire, a performer and artist who heads a queer COVID-conscious collective in western Massachusetts, has been the most visible critic. "COVID never truly went away," he told the Greenfield Recorder. He said long COVID "is something that is disproportionately affecting LGBTQ and Black communities."

The bar promised this in its own rules. Its posted house rules still require a well-fitted KN-95 "or better" at all times, and its Aug. 31 post addressed "our immunocompromised disabled divas." That post drew 442 comments, most of them angry. One read: "Just say you're being complicit in a mass disabling event and get it over with."

The critics say the apology and the meeting only made things worse. Commenters called the apology post inaccessible. At the Sept. 11 meeting, after the owner cried, Noire told her: "you chose to use your time to spill tears and center your feelings. This is incredibly racist and deflecting behavior." He says he won't go back unless the bar gets new leadership: "As a black person with other marginalized identities I no longer feel safe in this venue."

They say the paper told the wrong story. "The article focused more on the extreme backlash than why they got the backlash," Noire told the Recorder.

2. The Bar and Its Neighbors Say the Pile-On Is Now the Real Harm

The owner says she changed the rule to survive. Her staff say the scolding is the problem, and a city official and a Slate writer say the spotlight could kill the place.

This was about keeping the doors open, the owner says. Jackie Matellian, 26, is the only founder still running the bar. She personally carries the bar's $50,000 loan and lived in her truck for six months while putting her money into the bar. The landlord wanted back rent, and the second mask-optional Saturday was nearly empty anyway. "There's conflict, but we just hope that there's more repair than conflict," she told the Globe.

The people who work there say scolding isn't hospitality. Mixxy, a bartender who works for tips, told the Globe: "That's not how hospitality works." Melody Young, a volunteer and UMass Amherst graduate student, said, "We've gotten more support, in my opinion, than hate." Rene Pellissier, who co-hosts a comedy and poetry showcase at the bar, told Slate: "If we turn our backs any time we disagree, we will lose everything."

The harassment has to stop on both sides, the bar says. On Thursday, the bar posted a defense of its most visible critic: "Stop harassing Soe Noire. It is neither productive, progressive, nor valiant to attack and harass a black patron." The same post called the Globe's story "abysmal journalism" and said Noire was getting threats over things he never said.

The town says the spotlight is the danger now. Greenfield City Council President Lora Wondolowski told the Recorder, "I worry about their ability to weather this storm." The Western Massachusetts club of the Communist Party USA went further. Its statement says the Globe story "is not newsworthy, except in the context of the upcoming midterm elections" and accuses the paper of "courting the outrage of the national extreme right."

A Slate writer puts the blame on the internet. Christina Cauterucci wrote that "No bar-slash-arts-venue is capable of mending the structural shortcomings of the wider world," and that the real story is "how digital distance distorts everyone's perspective."

3. The Globe and the Commentators Say the Story Is Fair and the Scolds Are the Problem

The paper says its newsroom made an independent call. One of its own opinion writers and other commentators say the left is the problem.

The newsroom decides what runs, the Globe says. Adam Bagni, the Globe's director of communications, said in a statement to Fox News Digital, published Friday: "The Boston Globe is locally owned, and our newsroom makes editorial decisions independently, guided by our commitment to fair and accurate reporting." The story also brought the paper 1,000 new subscribers, according to Semafor.

One of the paper's own opinion writers says the left is the problem. Rebecca Spiess, a Globe opinion writer, wrote: "Leftists must stop letting the most vocal adherents take precedence over people with genuinely good intentions." She borrows writer Jeremiah Johnson's phrase, the "tyranny of the edge case," and says it "cannot be what governs our social behavior, laws, or our overall thinking." Would-be allies walk away, she writes, "just because they don't feel like getting yelled at."

Other writers say this is a pattern. Katie Herzog, host of the Blocked and Reported podcast, wrote in The Free Press that after years of covering "idealistic, politically progressive, and often queer institutions that collapse under the weight of staff or customers' demands," the Last Ditch story "is a familiar one." Dan Savage, the sex-advice columnist, said the bar should "make t-shirts and get rid of the mask mandate."

Politicians made it a punchline. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, posted: "Leftism is a mental disease. If you doubt that, read below." Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat, joked about a road trip to "the weird lesbian bar in western mass," then posted "trip cancelled, no one wanted to mask."

Where This Lands

Noire and the bar's critics say Last Ditch promised disabled patrons a safe room and took it away one night a week. Matellian says she changed the rule to keep the bar alive. The bar now says the harassment of its critic has to stop too. The Globe says its story was fair, and its commentators say the scolds are the real story. As of Thursday, the bar's fundraiser was 78 percent of the way to its $12,500 goal, the Recorder reported. Google has turned off new review posting. Nobody at the bar has announced a reversal of the Saturday policy. Matellian's stated plan is to turn the bar into a cooperative so the debt stops sitting on one person.

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