PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) — One of Central Illinois’ oldest comedy clubs is among the latest businesses struggling to survive the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s been a brutal year,” Dan Conlin, owner of the Jukebox Comedy Club, said.
The comedy club opened back in 1990 and Conlin has been its owner since May of 2000. He said the club was supposed to celebrate its 30th anniversary in November.
He said after more than 20 years of ownership and sharing laughs with the community, he’s never had a year this bad for business.
“Being closed almost six months out of the year, it’s a lot of lost revenue and a lot of lost opportunities to make people laugh,” Conlin said. “It’s horrible.”
He said he’s barely survived two shutdowns, the first one starting from mid-March until late-June and the second from early November until now. He said he’s also had to reduce the club’s capacity and is now sitting in an empty building, but the bills keep coming.
“I wasn’t getting any grant money, can’t get a loan,” Conlin said. “I knew that I needed to do something.”
He said because he has many loved-ones that are high-risk, he wasn’t going to take a chance and try to operate during the current climate.
Conlin said with time and options running out, he finally decided to swallow his pride and ask the public for help through a GoFundMe page.
“It is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do,” Conlin said. “The GoFundMe was in my mind but I had to make myself pull the trigger and I had to make myself put the words that I’d written on paper into the computer.”
He calls the decision agonizing.
“Deciding to ask for money when you’re not giving anything back, like a comedy show or a drink, is impossible almost,” Conlin said.
The GoFundMe page has generated more than $14,000 since it was created Friday. Conlin has also been receiving support from local comedians selling items such as paintings in front of his business and donating the profits to the club.
Drift Roberts is a former stand-up comedian and is now a bottle digger. He said he’s selling bottles he’s dug up and donating a portion of the proceeds to the place that helped him out when he was starting his career.
“This place fed me on many nights when I was hungry and it took care of me when I was a kid starting out in show business so I’m happy to give back any way that I can,” Roberts said.
Conlin said he appreciates the support for the club and hope it continues as he’s not ready to let go of it.
“I want to be the owner until I die and pass it on in my will or something,” Conlin said. “That would be my dream.”