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Opened and still owned by Dean, the Blue Lite has been a Sheboygan fixture for many years, and the go-to place for the area surrounding Sheboygan as well as a near-mandatory stop for guys driving between Green Bay and Milwaukee for gay bar stops. It holds great parties and is always a fun time for dancing or shows. The Blue Lite is, according to their Facebook page in 2020, "providing a safe fun environment for gay people since 1992", while on Yelp the listing reads "We have been in business since 1992 providing our customers with a safe and fun experience. Primarily gay, but welcoming and friendly for all.". In February-March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and the bar (along with millions of other bars, restaurants and other businesses around the world) was temporarily forced to close in March 2020 to reduce the spread of the disease. When it reopened around July 2020, legal capacity was temporarily greatly reduced and customers had to remain seated with social distancing and face mask use by staff and customers enforced. Through the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years holidays, crowds were essentially banned and (like all bars) the ambiance was subdued. COVID restrictions were gradually reduced, and around June 1, 2021, mask use by those vaccinated was often lifted (at the discretion of management) and capacity limits raised back to pre-pandemic levels. Blue Lite had survived the pandemic-- but many bars and restaurants across the country had been forced to close permanently, having been unable to sustain a year or more of no or greatly reduced business. Even such national gay bar landmarks as The Stonewall and Julius' in New York City had nearly gone under. The bar landscape was drastically changed. What will the future look like for bars, and especially gay bars? |
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Credits: contents, design and arrangement by Don Schwamb.
Last updated: August-2021.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.