Months after closing its doors, the new owners of Club Majestic—Matt Gerding, Scott Leslie and Bryan Ellefson—announced a new title and outlook for the music venue. The rechristened ""Majestic Theater,"" aims to provide community events and avoid the violence and bar fights that precipitated the venue's closing last fall.
The new approach to entertainment is just what the Majestic and Madison needs: it is community-oriented and aims to provide entertainment that is not focused on alcohol. The theater will sponsor national book tours, live stage concerts and community events and will close at midnight rather than bar time. However, the theater's reopening is contingent on the acquisition of a liquor license, which will be on the City Council's docket as soon as May 1.
We encourage the City Council to approve an alcohol permit for the new Majestic Theater. The committee must look beyond the troubles the club faced last summer and envision the future of Majestic as an ideal mid-size music and entertainment venue.
The new owners plan to not only restore the original name Majestic Theater, but also to refurbish the theater to its original state. With the revitalized look, Gerding, Leslie and Ellefson will bolster security with an identification scanner, security cameras and safety updates to the Madison Police Department. For every 50 Majestic patrons, the owners will supply one security guard.
The new Majestic Theater serves as an example of how the proposed Alcohol License Density Plan could infringe on downtown development. The plan primarily aims to ""decrease the volume and severity of alcohol-related problems in the central downtown,"" but the impact of this plan would be unclear for Majestic Theater.
Since the venue is applying for a license but is neither associated with the sale of an existing and operational tavern, nor enjoys the more lax licensing terms for restaurants, it falls into a grey zone in terms of permit eligibility. Majestic Theater could earn consideration for a permit if it demonstrated that it would reap no more than 2 percent of revenue from alcohol sales, but the calculation itself to meet this requisite could stall the process of obtaining a permit.
Since the attrition plan is not yet in effect, it does not directly affect Majestic Theater. Still, if the plan infringes on the establishment of promising new businesses, it will hurt—not help—downtown Madison.
