“We've been closed for eight months, except for a brief six-week period where we observed all the restrictions and kept things real safe for folks,” Kauffman says. “But people weren't going out that much.”
During the period the Lion’s Lair was open, Kauffman says it wasn’t possible to book live bands with 25 percent capacity because of COVID mandates, and he had to cancel about two and a half months of bands that were on the books.
“The Lair has a community that is supportive,” the GoFundMe page states. “LL's community consists of people that live for this bar. People that need the bar for support, friendship, expression of music or art, and sometimes you just need a place dark and calm to grab a drink.