NORTHAMPTON — The License Commission is cracking down on one of the city’s most prominent businessmen for not using some of the all-alcohol liquor licenses he owns for entertainment venues downtown.

Commissioners last month questioned Eric Suher about five of his properties that have either been continuously closed or struggled to remain open since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic: The Basement, The Green Room, Calvin Theater, Iron Horse and Pearl Street Nightclub. The closures have created a dearth of big-name music acts in the city, though many musicians who do come have found alternative venues to perform.

The commission at its Feb. 14 meeting seized the liquor license for Pearl Street and gave Suher until June to reopen the Iron Horse and The Green Room, or those licenses, too, would be seized. At the commission’s meeting on Wednesday, it was announced that Suher has appealed the seizure to the state’s Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission.

Commission member Helen Kahn said the Pearl Street Nightclub at 10 Pearl St. “certainly has that appearance when you walk by that it is shuttered and neglected. It’s holding on to a license that could be used in another to help make another place more vibrant.”

Meanwhile, The Green Room, a cocktail bar on Center Street reopened in August 2021 after closing during the pandemic, but closed again in September 2022. Suher said the closure was due to lack of staff and that he was in the process of hiring a new manager.

“That business is going to reopen as soon as we’re comfortable with new management,” he said.

Suher also addressed the situation at the Iron Horse, telling commissioners last month that when the venue does reopen it would not initially serve food and drinks as it has in the past.

“We wouldn’t have a kitchen until we were able to establish a calendar that could get us to the five to seven event nights a week that is necessary to be able to hire a full kitchen staff,” Suher said.

Pearl Street and the Iron Horse have been closed since March of 2020, the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Iron Horse at one point had shows booked to return to the location in 2021, although those plans eventually fell flat. Suher said he expected the Iron Horse to have enough acts to reopen by this fall.

Commissioners declined to seize licenses from The Basement at 21 Center St., a few doors down from The Green Room, preferring to wait on an update regarding a new restaurant planned for the location. They also declined to take action on the Calvin Theater, due to the venue having hosted several live acts in recent months.

Suher said that the way musicians in a post-pandemic world operate has made it hard to book shows for his venues. He said he planned to bring back more shows to the Calvin in the summer, but acknowledged that no shows had actually been selected as of yet.

“It’s always dependent on the artist, and this has been a particularly interesting year in terms of touring musicians,” Suher said. “The last couple of years have been very difficult.”

License Commission chair Natasha Yakovlev countered at the Feburary meeting that other Northampton venues did not have the same kind of struggles reopening. The Academy of Music, The Parlor Room and the Bombyx Center for Arts & Equity have all been reopened and feature musical acts.

“You’ve said that this has been an obviously very hard time for touring musicians,” she said. “But it’s also been a time where other venues are actually flourishing.”

Kahn said at the meeting that Suher has a record of not following through on promises of when his properties would reopen, going back a decade.

“We certainly want your businesses to succeed, I mean they’re almost synonymous with Northampton,” Kahn said. “I’m just wondering how assurances can be made that that would happen.”

The contention over Suher’s licenses comes as the city looks to expand the number of highly coveted all-alcohol liquor license permits, with the City Council recently approving a request to ask the Legislature to create seven additional such licenses in the city in order to entice more businesses to open downtown.

Suher has previously faced criticism for his management practices and treatment of employees even before the pandemic, and in 2021 was ordered by the attorney general’s office to pay $100,000 in restitution fees after a two-year investigation revealed failure to pay wages in a timely manner and denial of paid sick time for employees of his venues.

Stagehands at the Calvin Theater had also filed a complaint against Suher with the National Labor Relations Board last September, saying Suher had abandoned union contract negotiations. That complaint was resolved after a new contract was approved two months later.

Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.]]>