Communist Party Chapter Just Branded the Boston Globe MAGA Media over a Bar Story

A financially struggling lesbian bar in Greenfield, Massachusetts, made Saturdays mask-optional just to keep the lights on.

This week, a Massachusetts chapter of the actual Communist Party jumped straight into the fight.

What the communists said next about their own hometown newspaper is turning heads across the country.

Communist Party Chapter Calls Accurate Reporting Not Newsworthy

Long after most of the country dropped COVID rules, some corners of the far left still treat a mask requirement as a moral test, and this week that test blew up a small business.

Last Ditch Bar and Arts Venue opened last year in a Greenfield basement as a mask-mandatory space for what its owners called "dykes, transsexuals, gender freaks, workers, and their friends."

The bar never turned anyone away for lack of money, and that generosity came with a price tag its owners could not cover.

The bar was deep in the red, $3,900 behind on rent and saddled with a $50,000 loan that owner Jackie Matellian must repay personally.

So it dropped the KN-95 requirement one night a week, betting a slightly bigger Saturday crowd would cover the bills.

Longtime patrons did not see a business fighting to survive; they saw a betrayal.

Performer Soe Noire led the backlash, accusing the bar of ableism and warning that an unmasked night put immunocompromised regulars in real danger.

The pile-on got personal fast, and one person's response crossed from criticism into an outright threat, wishing arson on the building over the policy change.

Another commenter told the bar that closing down would be a direct result of its own ableism, nothing else.

The Boston Globe reported the entire meltdown, and the story detonated online, pulling in more than 17 million views on X in a single day.

Fox News and Senator Ted Cruz both amplified it, turning a basement bar dispute in a city of about 17,800 people into a national spectacle.

That is when the Communist Party decided the real villain in this story was not the mob: it was the newspaper that reported on it.

Card-Carrying Marxists Now Say the Globe Is Secretly Far Right

The Western Massachusetts chapter of the Communist Party USA posted a statement dismissing the Globe's sourced, on-the-record article as unworthy of the coverage it received.

The party's argument came down to timing and audience: with midterms approaching and trans rights already a flashpoint, it claimed only a right-leaning readership stood to benefit from picking apart a queer community's internal dispute.

Then came the real gut punch: the statement branded the Globe an "ally of corporate lobbies across the state."

A newspaper whose own editorial page has spent decades well to the left of the average American voter was suddenly cast as MAGA-coded by an actual communist organization.

The party's statement went even further, casting the Globe's factual reporting as a weapon of the political right rather than ordinary journalism.

The Globe's director of communications, Adam Bagni, responded that the newsroom makes its editorial decisions independently and stands by its reporting.

Even a nearby mask-required bookstore, Federal Street Books, pushed back online, arguing that outside media had turned a small business's survival story into internet entertainment.

Notice what none of these critics did: not one of them spent a sentence condemning the person who wished arson on a small business.

The Mob Turns on Its Own and the Party Blames the Paper

This is the same playbook the online left runs on any business, restaurant, or comedian who steps an inch out of line, and this time the left turned it on one of its own.

When a Marxist party chapter decides the Boston Globe is too conservative for reporting facts, it tells you exactly how far the goalposts on the American left have moved.

Yesterday's gatekeepers are apparently today's enemies, and the only unforgivable sin left is publishing something true that makes the movement look bad.

The lesson for every small business owner watching from the outside is simple: the mob does not care whether you agree with it on everything; it only cares that you crossed it once.

Sources:

• Hanna Panreck, "Massachusetts Communist Party chapter attacks Boston Globe over lesbian bar story," Fox News, September 25, 2026.
• Annalisa Quinn, "Greenfield lesbian bar Last Ditch faces mask-rule backlash," The Boston Globe, September 22, 2026.
• "Greenfield Lesbian Bar Last Ditch Eases Mask Rule, Faces Furious Backlash," Hoodline, September 2026.
• "What Is The 'Last Ditch Bar Mask-Optional Drama'?," Yahoo Entertainment, September 2026.
• "Greenfield takes stock of viral attention," Greenfield Recorder, September 24, 2026.