Alibi Lounge

Harlem’s Alibi Lounge, One of the City’s Only Black-Owned LGBTQ Bars, Is in Another Fight for Survival | Eater NY

"One of the city’s only Black-owned, LGBTQ bars, Alibi Lounge in Harlem is fighting to survive: owner Alexi Minko still needs to raise $12,000 to reach the $20,000 required to renew the bar’s five-year lease with landlord Mordy Getz before it expires on March 31. Since launching its GoFundMe in May 2020, Alibi has raised over $180,000 from 6,800 donors—donations Minko says have been essential to keeping the bar afloat—and Getz has granted multiple mid-pandemic rent breaks (forgiving several months, reducing rent by 30 percent in some months, and moving back the renewal deadline), even donating $500 to the fundraiser this week. Business has been better as the weather warmed, but the state pandemic curfew—forcing last orders at 10 p.m. and a full shutdown by 11 p.m.—has been particularly crippling because customers know Alibi as a late-night drinking establishment rather than a restaurant (people still think of it as a lounge or club and will show up at 9 p.m.). Minko is also repeatedly shooing customers away from banned bar seating and says the confusing state restrictions are the hardest part to navigate: “We shouldn’t have to go to GoFundMe,” he says, urging constructive, smart solutions to the pandemic problem; meanwhile a group of 46 New York restaurants and bars has filed a lawsuit seeking removal of the curfew." - Erika Adams