“I see businesses all around me closing right now. “I really don’t know what the future is going to hold for us,” Rice said. If Congress doesn’t approve a new round of relief funding by then, Rice said the nightclub might close for good. Rice has kept the bar afloat thanks to the federal Paycheck Protection Program, which provided hundreds of billions of dollars in potentially forgivable loans to businesses across the country to help them retain employees and pay other expenses amid the pandemic.īut the money CC Slaughters secured through the program will be gone in just over a month. Six months into the pandemic, business remains down 80%. Before March, he was accustomed to patrons packing the Old Town club to hear nightly live DJ sets.īut coronavirus restrictions forced the Portland establishment to shut down for three months and reopen with greatly reduced capacity.
PORTLAND - Bruce Rice spends every night at CC Slaughters, the gay bar and nightclub he has owned for 17 years.
