PASADENA, CA — Like the rest of the nation, COVID-19 upended life across Pasadena. Many businesses in the city shut down for good or have struggled to stay afloat. Now, the city’s only gay bar is fighting for survival after being closed for more than a year, according to a new report from the Los Angeles Times.
In its nearly 40-year history, the Boulevard has never closed its doors — that changed in March 2020 when the coronavirus brought life to a standstill. While restaurants and bars were able to adapt to the pandemic by offering to-go service for food and cocktails, the bar remained quiet.
The Boulevard didn’t offer food and wasn’t equipped to offer to-go cocktails, according to The Times report. Bills began piling up for the business.
Steve Terradot, the bar’s owner, told the paper a PPP loan he received last year has long been used up, and he’s had to pay the bar’s bills with his unemployment checks.
Facing an uncertain future for the bar, a pair of regular customers came to Terradot with an idea — to start a GoFundMe campaign.
He initially balked at the idea.
“My ethos is you get out, you work and you do things,” Terradot told the Times. “It was also embarrassing for a guy my age to collect unemployment.”
He eventually relented and the Boulevard’s GoFundMe campaign launched in April with the hopes of raising $50,000 to help pay for repairs at the bar and for some remodeling work.
A little more than $20,000 has been raised by the campaign, as of Thursday morning.
“This is the last true safe haven for the LGBTQ community within 20 miles of the Pasadena area and home to so many drag performers from all over the country,” Mark Lanza, the campaign’s organizer, said on the GoFundMe page. “This place means so much to so many of us and has served the gay community and its allies for almost 40 years.”
Read the rest of the Los Angeles Times’ story on the Boulevard by visiting the paper’s website.
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