The Stonewall Inn owners on 2021 Pride celebrations

Kurt Kelly, Owner of The Stonewall Inn and Co-founder of The Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative & Stacy Lentz, CEO of The Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative and Co-owner of The Stonewall Inn, joined Yahoo Finance Live to discuss 2021 Pride and how COVID-19 impacted business.

Video Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

JULIE HYMAN: Well, June is Pride Month, and this year marks the 51st anniversary of LGBTQ Pride traditions here in the US. We want to talk a little bit more about this with our next two guests. We have Kurt Kelly and Stacy Lentz. They're co-owners of the Stonewall Inn, and they're also behind the Stonewall Inn Gives Back initiative. Kurt and Stacy, thanks so much for joining us here. And I just want to point out to our viewers, and for anyone who's not familiar with the Stonewall Inn, it was the location of the police raid back in 1969, which really started the LGBTQ liberation movement here in the US. So your bar, the location, is so important here for this month and everything that it stands for. And Stacy, I'll go to you first, just talk to us about the celebrations this year. We're coming out of COVID. We're seeing the restrictions lifted, and your bar is open this year and able to welcome guests.

STACY LENTZ: Yeah, I think that's the biggest thing. Last year it was really tough, and we couldn't all come together and celebrate as our chosen family. It's super important, these spaces, for our community. This is where they gather, this is where we celebrate and things of that nature, so not having Pride last year and actually being locked or isolated at home was detrimental to our community. I think we're excited to welcome everybody back and have everybody out there celebrating Pride again.

- Kurt, I just want to get your take on what it was like to go through COVID as not only a bar owner, but a bar owner of a designated historical landmark here. What happened, and how did you make it work for you?

KURT KELLY: [INAUDIBLE] first. They said we're closing down the day before St. Patty's Day, went to the club took all the money and three cases of liquor and went home. No. It impacted our safe space. The Stonewall Inn is one of the original safe spaces, and the LGBTQ community couldn't go there. So that for the community, impacted that way. Financially it just devastated us. But Stonewall Inn isn't the only place. All the bars throughout the country, and restaurants, were devastated financially. Luckily, we're the Stonewall Inn and the community is behind us, and they helped us out.

JULIE HYMAN: So, Kurt, what does it look like for you're then going forward, because yes we were able to come out of the pandemic but there's still so much uncertainty right now.

KURT KELLY: You've just kind of look forward, and no one is going to put New York in the corner. We're going to survive. It's just, it's day by day, and every day you take that punch. And this is the way it's been for the past year and we'll continue on forever. We got to keep the place open. This is the gay church, it has to stay.

- Stacy, can you give us a little bit more information about your Stonewall Inn Gives Back initiative, and what it means for the community and some of the more progressive things that you're doing to advance the movement.

STACY LENTZ: Yeah, absolutely. So in 2017, we started the Stonewall Inn Gives Back initiative, and we're really focused on places across the country that would really talk to the LGBTQ and the daily stigma exists. So we work with the under-served and marginalized community. Places in Tennessee, places in Mississippi, Kansas City, Salt Lake City. Areas that is really, really tough still. We also are rolling out a Safe Spaces initiative, where we're really saying to communities across the country we need more safe spaces. So we're asking restaurants, businesses, public venues that actually put out the rainbow sticker during Pride Month and say they're LGBTQ friendly and that they're a safe space, we're going to make them do the work to prove it. We're asking our community what a criteria should look like to make a place designated as a Stonewall Gives Back initiative safe space, and we're going to really hold their feet to the fire. To make sure that corporations that say they support us-- especially during Pride with the rainbow flags everywhere-- that they actually do support our community and fight for things like the Equality Act, which would be a game changer for our community.

JULIE HYMAN: Stacy, I want to talk a little bit more about that specifically, what corporations can do that they're not doing and the ones who are doing it successfully, what are the biggest lessons that we've learned here over the last couple of years just in terms of inclusion and what we can do to better advance that.

STACY LENTZ: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, again, some of these corporations are doing a tremendous job. I mean, they've got policies that are really focused on the LGBTQ community in terms of hiring practices and recruiting, and then diversity within diversity of that community, which is amazing. And some of them are stepping up and realizing, we're not just LGBTQ during the month of June, we're actually LGBTQ 365 days a year, and they're supporting our community 365 days a year. And some of them, and I think that'll be the next wave that we're looking for, where are we donating to. How are they using their money. I mean, who are they backing in terms of candidates or political action groups and things of that nature. So again, I think we'll see that really roll out across the country too, as we start to really look at what corporations can do. They love marketing to our community because we have a huge amount of spending power, and I think it's great and I think we can use corporations to the advancement of our community. But we've got to make sure that they're not just virtual signaling during Pride Month, that they're actually doing the work 365 days a year.

- Kurt, I want to get your take as a bar owner just a little bit more broadly on the response to COVID here. We've gotten some shifting guidance from the CDC that carves a number of fits and starts you could say just because there was a lot of uncertainty about what's happening. But are you seeing more certainty now, and how do you see the reopening plan unfolding around you, where you have boots on the ground.

KURT KELLY: It definitely has been a day to day thing. Like I said, you never know what's going to happen the next day. What I feel right now is the energy outside. The energy that everyone is joining together and saying, OK, we've done it. We're singing out and this is it. So I'm feeling that. So going forward seems like every day it's getting less and less stress and more fun.

JULIE HYMAN: Kurt Kelly and Stacy Lentz, thanks so much for taking the time. It's great to speak with you. Co-owners of the Stonewall Inn, we wish you all the best.