Posted: 3:09 p.m. Aug. 14, 2009
Firefly Club, Ann Arbor's jazz beacon, closed by the state
By MARK STRYKER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Ann Arbor’s Firefly Club, a beacon for live jazz for nearly a decade and regarded by aficionados as metro Detroit’s finest all-around jazz club, has been closed and its property seized by the Michigan Department of Treasury due to a delinquent sales tax bill.
Club owner Susan Chastain said the dispute boils down to overdue sales tax payments totaling just $1,000 for the months of June and July, though the club ultimately still owes the state $120,000 in back taxes, penalties and interest charges.
Treasury officials, accompanied by police, padlocked the doors to the South Main Street club at about 6:30 p.m. Thursday night, and the fate of the club remains unclear. Chastain wants to stay open but said that officials told her that if she doesn’t pay the entire $120,000 bill within 10 days, the club will be shuttered permanently and the assets, including a $36,000 Yamaha grand piano, will be auctioned off.
“I don’t have the money to pay,” said Chastain, a singer who sometimes performs at the club. “The state can sell everything I have.”
She said she hoped to be able to work out a deal with state officials to keep the club open. Treasury spokesman Caleb Buhs said that he was prevented by law from discussing the specifics of the case. However, once the department seizes a business' property, payment plans are no longer accepted, he said.
"At this point, the only way to keep a business open is to pay the bill in full," said Buhs.
News of the club’s closure was met with anger and disbelief in local jazz community. The Firefly has been a critical locus for jazz in metro Detroit, the only full-time club that presents the finest local musicians mixed with a steady diet of top national talent. Moreover, Chastain is a beloved figure, a den mother to the scene, whose devotion to the music’s highest artistic ideals has remained unimpeachable, even in the face of financial duress.
The club has been a home for all styles of jazz, from New Orleans and swing styles to bebop, post-bop and the avant-garde, and it provides a haven for area students to hone their skills. Serious listeners and campus types fill the club, though the atmosphere is relaxed and friendly. The Firefly regularly pops up on national lists of the country’s leading jazz clubs.
Bassist Paul Keller, a regular at the club, called the current situation a “tragedy” and warned that the local cultural community might never fully recover should it close for good.
“Dozens of musicians have put their hearts and souls, creativity, energy and sweat and love into helping the Firefly Club remain vital and viable,” he said. “It has always been a labor of love for those who perform there and a source of pleasure, comfort and safety to those who come to enjoy the entertainment.”
The news also comes as local jazz aficionados have been fretting over fate of Baker’s Keyboard Lounge, the historic, 75-year-old jazz club in Detroit, which threatened to close last spring due to financial trouble but has continued to soldier on at 8 Miles and Livernois. Should the Firefly close, it would leave Ann Arbor without a true jazz club for the first time in decades.
The Firefly’s current predicament dates back to its early years when it operated on Ashley Street in the downtown core. Chastain said that inexperience in running a club led her to overlook filing sales taxes. The state assessed her a bill of about $160,000 in 2006-07 — a figure she claims was arbitrarily high but which she agreed to in order to keep operating. Chastain and state authorities worked out a payment plan of $2,000 a month.
Chastain said she never missed a payment, but with business slowing down last winter due to the economy, she renegotiated a deal to pay $1,500 a month for January through May, with the monthly bill returning to $2,000 in June. She said that because business remained slow, she continued to pay only $1,500 a month in both June and July and expected to make up the $1,000 she owed with a few weekends of good business in August.
“Why would you shut somebody down who’s been paying you regularly — it’s counterproductive,” said New York-based saxophonist Tim Ries, a Tecumseh native who works regularly with the Rolling Stones in addition to maintaining an active jazz career and was scheduled to perform at the Firefly on Saturday. [[Ries’ 9 p.m. performance has been moved to the Kerrytown Concert House and the $10 cover charge will now be used to benefit Chastain and the Firefly.)
Opened in 2000, the club was forced to move from its downtown location in 2007 when Chastain’s landlord decided to rent her first floor space to a second floor exercise studio who wanted to expand. Generally, business has slowed since the club reopened six blocks south of downtown at 637 S. Main, mostly, said Chastain, because she lost walk-in traffic. The recession has hurt too, though Chastain says special event nights still draw well and she was managing to make ends meet.
“I always knew there’d be no money in the club, but it became my life,” she said. “I sang, washed glasses, booked music and plunged toilets. A business like this is a lifestyle choice, but if we can’t pay our bills, we can’t stay open.”
Contact MARK STRYKER : 313-222-6459 or
stryker@freepress.com
