As you may have heard, the New York State Liquor Authority recently added new guidelines prohibiting advertising or selling tickets for live music.
This has been a devasting blow to small, independent venues who have spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of man-hours to completely reimagine their businesses and reopen safely.
Waitstaff, support staff, and musicians have all been thrown out of work for the second time in 2020, despite the fact that NY is experiencing the lowest numbers of cases since the Coronavirus saga began.
Even worse, the new guidelines do absolutely nothing to address the problem of large crowds in establishments who aren’t complying with COVID-19 guidelines. Businesses who ignored the rules are still open and not taking common-sense precautions. Businesses who did everything right have closed down again and are paying a steep price for the actions of others.
We are fully committed to presenting live music with every possible precaution in place, but the new SLA guidelines have cut us off at the knees.
In response, we have formed a Facebook group called #LetTheMusicPlay. The focus of the page is to enlist the help of everyone – venues, musicians, and music lovers – to convince Governor Cuomo that our industry is more than capable of adapting to meet the challenge of our COVID-19 reality.
If you are interested in helping the cause, head over and join today:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/letthemusicplayny/
The group is public and anyone can join, but you do have to agree to group rules before we can approve you.
We will share information and resources and post action-items regularly to draw attention to the issue. The industries that have been successful in rallying for their businesses to reopen are the ones who have made the most noise, and together, we can use our collective networks to change these absurd rules.
