Wasilla Bar to close its doors

WASILLA -- After looking to sell for nearly a year and a half, owners Bernice and Mike Lohman are selling the Wasilla Bar. The liquor license and building is being bought by R and R investments, and Mike Lohman said Applebees is considering purchasing the liquor license.

"They are negotiating a purchase," he said.

The Lohmans bought the bar in 1995; Wasilla Bar has been around since the mid-1970s. The couple remodeled the bar and added an additional 2,000 square feet to the Parks Highway location. Now, nine years later, Bernice Lohman said they are just ready to bow out of the bar business.

"It's just the right time for us to get out of the business," said Bernice, who has been in the liquor business for almost 40 years.

The Lohmans said that changes in the state's liquor laws have made it difficult to keep liability down; now that bars can be held liable for actions taken after a patron leaves, the couple decided it was time to move on.

"We've been fighting for years to make people responsible drinkers, and that's hard to do," said Mike, who regularly works the front entrance of the bar, making sure people who have had too much to drink do not drive.

The bar's last open night is March 20; the closing paperwork will be signed sometime after the 26th. Rumors of what the bar will become are flurrying in the Valley. Lohman squelched the rumor that the Salvation Army had purchased the building, saying he is not sure who R and R investments will sell the 5,600-square-foot space to.

Wasilla Bar employs 12 people, and the Lohmans have been trying to help their employees find work. But employees aren't the only ones mourning the loss of Wasilla's long time watering hole; many patrons of Wasilla Bar have been approaching the Lohmans, asking them where they are going to go now to play darts, visit with friends or just have a drink after a long day at work.

"It's more of a social atmosphere than someplace to get intoxicated," said Mike, mentioning that a number of different crowds, from young dancers on a Friday night to the older men visiting on Monday morning, frequent the bar.

"I keep telling them to find another place to meet and then to let me know where it is," said Mike. "I'll meet them there -- it'll be nice to be on the other side of the bar for once."