When city officials recently learned a deal to sell the long-vacant Calvin Theater in Northampton, Massachusetts, had fallen through, when it came to the venue's liquor license, they weren't going to wait for another buyer.
Through a lottery on Wednesday, the city's License Commission is offering up the building's much sought after liquor license to local businesses.
Four businesses have entered into a lottery draw, which will take place during the commission's regular monthly meeting, July 16.
Back in 2023, Calvin Theater owner Eric Suher was joined by representatives of The Bowery Presents at a Northampton License Commission Meeting, and commissioners were told the New-York based concert producers were poised to buy the theater.
At the time, there was talk of shows happening in the Calvin by early 2024.
Anticipating a sale, commissioners allowed the Calvin's liquor license to stay with the building, at the same meeting where they cancelled liquor licenses at Suher's other empty properties.
But a sale never came.
At the commission's regular meeting last month, Annie Lesko, the city's administration, licensing & economic development coordinator, reported that the mayor's office had been in contact with a different prospective buyer, Marc Geiger of SaveLIVE, an operation founded during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to support struggling independent venues.
Lesko relayed some of what she heard to the commission.
"In talking with this individual, it sounds like the deal between the Bowery and Eric went sour because—and this is all just hearsay but—that Eric did not like the Bowery people, which is why it didn't continue," she said.
The commission was faced with a choice: they could hold onto the Calvin's liquor license — one of the city's precious few — for a possible new buyer, or put it back into circulation.
They chose the latter.
"It's great that there's another entity interested in entering into discussions with Eric," License Commission Chair Natasha Yokovlev said at the June meeting. "But as we know, those discussions can take," she paused, "forever."
In February 2024, Eric Suher did not submit required documents to the state as expected, in order to transfer several all-alcoholic beverage licenses to other entertainment venues.
Back then, the new owners of the Iron Horse Music Hall were told that to open in the coming weeks, and obtain that license, the Massachusetts Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission (ABCC) said the buyers (the Parlor Room, Inc.), must submit state certificates showing the seller — Iron Horse Ventures owner Eric Suher — was in good standing with the state.
At the time, Suher told Northampton city officials he was still working on his filings to the state, "so that there is still no certificate and that from my understanding, it's still going to be quite some time" Suher added that the onus was on him, not the state.
When reached for comment this week, Eric Suher, who owns real estate around the city, declined to comment.
