Vermont continues to reopen sectors of the economy that have been shuttered by the coronavirus pandemic. Bars and social clubs re-opened Wed., March 24, after having to close by state order for the second time in November. On Friday, many of Vermont's Moose Lodges will reopen their doors. VPR’s Mitch Wertlieb spoke with Dan Companion, administrator of the Burlington Moose Lodge and the president of the Northeast Moose Association, representing the service-oriented fraternal Moose Lodges in Vermont and New Hampshire. Their conversation below has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Mitch Wertlieb: For folks who have never been to a Moose Lodge, what exactly is it? How does it differ, say, from a bar or a pub?
Dan Companion: Moose Lodges fall under a fraternal organization. That's pretty much an IRS distinction for allowing us to be a not-for-profit organization. And the big difference is we're a member organization, you have to be a member to come into the lodge and participate. There's nothing secret about it. A lot of people think, “Oh, that there's that private lodge that I can't go into.” That's absolutely not true.
We do fraternal work. Our mission is Moose Heart and Moose Haven. We have a campus in North Chicago that takes care of children who have lost their parents or guardians, through no fault of their own. And [we work in] the [local] community. We, for instance, in Burlington, are one of the largest donors to Feeding Chittenden. We give them thousands of pounds of food during the Thanksgiving holiday, and they count on us. And people absolutely love that particular event that we do.
So anybody can really join these things, you just pay a membership fee, I imagine, and then you can go in anytime you like?
Exactly. It ranges anywhere from $40 to $60 a year and truthfully, that money goes right to the mission. It's a great corps of people. And we make sure that we bring in the right members, you know, people that match up to our values. You know, we certainly don't discourage anybody from coming in, but we want you to understand that we are volunteers, and we do have a mission, to help out Moose Heart and Moose Haven.
I'm curious why Moose Lodges were then, as I understand it, considered like bars or taverns, so they fell under that [pandemic emergency order] shutdown that happened about a year ago, but not restaurants, which have been reopened before this. So why that distinction?
We were confused, to be honest. Especially in the beginning, we were allowed to stay open, you know, in that original timeframe of March to November. We have social quarters, as we call them. We don't call them bars because, again, the public can't just walk into our facility. You have to have a membership card, and we check those things to make sure that we're upholding our bylaws and the rules of the IRS.
So, we were confused also, because we felt we were doing a great job. We were checking our members’ cards. We had all the sanitation in place. You know, we took away the bar seats. So to this day, we're very confused why the fraternal [organizations] got put into that situation.
What's it been like, then, trying to stay afloat for Moose Lodges in Vermont over the past year or so?
Very, very challenging. Obviously, we've lost a substantial amount of money to the organization. We have lodges in Springfield, Bellows Falls, Bennington, Rutland, Burlington and St. Albans. And St. Johnsbury, also. (They'll give me a hard time if I forgot St. J.)
But a lot of our lodges have absolutely been struggling. And to be honest with you, some of the membership have been struggling, too. So the renewals of membership have been a challenge, because people can't come to the lodge and participate in the community things that we do.
We actually, during the shutdown, did do a “toys for kids” event outside in the parking lot. We continue to try to do the fraternal things that we did [but do them] outside. We tried to make it work and keep the membership happy, and try to find new members, obviously.
This must be a big deal for you, now, because [as of Wed., March 24] there are re-openings happening [for bars, clubs and similar organizations]. The Moose Lodges can be reopened. Do you think it's happening with enough time, then, for many of these lodges to survive?
Good question. I'm literally traveling this Sunday to St. Johnsbury to work with them, to help them try to raise money, to keep things going. You know, the hard part is, we've still had to pay our liquor licenses. Those are quite a bit of money. The state has given us no help with that. So that's a big fee to keep things going, because we do have a social quarters, and people count on that part of the value of the lodge to do that. Ongoing taxes and things that have built up, property taxes, we're trying to budget through and get ourselves reset again.
Another frustrating part for us was: we protect seniors. We don't put people at risk. So we absolutely take the mask wearing, and the social distancing and the things that we need to do very, very seriously. And I look forward to the lodges opening, in Burlington at 3:00 p.m. and in Rutland, at 11 a.m. today [Fri., March 26.].
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