Neumos in Seattle, in a Pandemic: ‘Too Risky’ Not to Require Vaccinations

How has Neumos been since you received the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant?

Things are great. I have a paycheck. I am unemployed! We have full staff again. Everyone is back and working. We have shows and they’re all sold out and full. People love it. We can pay all of these past bills, which is an amazing feeling. [The Small Business Administration] wanted to split it into four payments for the Shuttered Venue Operator Grant distribution and it was like “why?” It would take so much more work from them and we owe a lot of money. A quarter of it won’t pay my bills. I’m so glad they came over and understood that this wasn’t the way to go. Now we can pay people back, which is good because they need the money too.

I’m excited. It’s so great to have this point behind you and to be able to think about the future. Even if everything is in the air with that [COVID] Variants, I say: “We were closed for 476 days. I think we can deal with anything else that lies ahead of us.” If I can do this mentally, I can get through pretty much anything. My tank is empty and I don’t want to. I would love to thwart the rest of summer through fall, but that won’t be the case.

Why can’t you just cruise?

Two weekends ago, nine bars in Seattle closed because employees were hit by COVID. Because of this, there was a lot of pressure to ask for a vaccination. Neumos had already done that. At the opening we asked for proof of vaccination. We didn’t care much about it, also because you never want to be the first or the last. When you bought a ticket, it said you had to get vaccinated. We didn’t want to get the backlash, but once [the nine bars closed] There was a bigger push for everyone to get started [requiring vaccination proof]. So we did it with our bar Life on Mars, which we didn’t originally have. People got ballistic on us. They became monkeys – t. I’ve been called so many times as a Nazi, which is so strange calling someone to ask for proof of vaccination and try to protect them.

The good thing is that it got all of these other companies to do this. There are now over 100 bars and venues in Seattle that have made it. They all need vaccination cards. I understand that there are people who for various reasons do not want to be vaccinated – that is their choice. But it is my choice to protect my staff and my patrons. You can also have a negative test for the past 48 hours. It’s just too risky right now.

What was the backlash to the decision to prove vaccination?

We had to delete 200 comments on Instagram. What happened in my opinion is that a right wing group caught us and sent us to their mailing list and then a 14 year old kid in South Carolina posted on your account that you are horrible and Nazis and whatever? . It’s stupid, but it’s a tactic they use. We also got hundreds of comments from real people about how awesome it was. And then the trolls go to Yelp and Google. So I spent most of the weekend digging into Yelp and Google thinking, “Look, these people don’t live in the state. Read what they posted. They posted a star and that we’re terrible, but they didn’t come “Inside.” Most took them. Some people are not as stupid as others, talking about the food sucks and the service sucks. Yelp and Google won’t touch these. That’s what we’re going to deal with later. There are ways to get on with it. That was just the first peel. This is happening all over the country.

How hard was it to get rid of those bad reviews?

It was easy to get the basic one-star models. Just go and report them. The folks on Yelp and Google leave and they can see pretty clearly that these aren’t real reviews. We’ll see the next. We’re going to have a real strategy behind it, other than just reporting it. I also don’t care as much about reviews as the next person. I know it’s super popular, but for my places, people know what they are. If you’re visiting from out of town, come for John Richards and KEXP. [Richards is a Seattle radio DJ at KEXP and co-owner of Life on Mars.] But Neumos came out well. The groups on the right didn’t come to the venue. Neumos received 98% positive reviews for this choice and the other 2% likely didn’t. And if so, who cares? We just did everything to be open again. I am not risking my livelihood.