The planned opening of a new drag bar and eatery is on hold at the site of the old Hush Lounge where a deadly mass shooting happened in Birmingham.

The owners of Opulence Drag Lounge & Taqueria originally announced that they hoped to open the bar on Magnolia Avenue in Five Points in time for Pride Month in June. But last week, the owner, Scott Charby, laid off all six members of the management team and rescinded offer letters to roughly 30 staff.

There was no more money.

“Everything sadly just kept taking longer than expected and costing a little more than expected,” Charby said in an interview with AL.com. “I’m not trying to make excuses for any of that.”

Hush Lounge closed at the site last December, a couple months after a shooting on the sidewalk killed four people and injured at least 17.

“We wanted to take this space back, make it not have its black mark on it anymore, and really make it a safe space for this community,” Charby said. “That was what the intent always was.”

As the bar struggles to open, Birmingham has seen two LGBTQ+ bars close recently, The Quest Club and Our Place, both in Lakeview. It’s a gap that Charby said he and his partner, Wade Brooks, specifically wanted to fill.

Charby and Brooks moved to Birmingham from Las Vegas in October with the hopes of opening a gay bar. Between November and December, they worked with REV Birmingham to build out their business plan and applied for a loan through the U.S. Small Business Administration.

That funding didn’t come through, so Charby took out personal loans, he said. They’ve been renovating inside the bar, installing a video wall and a sound system that he said ended up costing much more than estimated because of tariffs.

They started hiring the management team in May, and a total of six managers were working by June.

“Weeks passed where I had no revenue coming in and salaries going out every single week,” Charby said.

In early July, the owners sent out offer letters to more staff members – servers, kitchen and bartending staff. They were instructed to start July 21, according to a copy of an offer letter dated July 2 that was obtained by AL.com.

But then, on July 8, Charby said, he found out that a funding source had dropped out. The next day, he said, he called the six managers into his office and told them he had to lay them off. He said that they would receive paychecks on Friday and that he didn’t have the money to pay them for the three days they had worked that week.

Then, Charby sent out an email to the rest of the staff rescinding their offer letters.

“Due to circumstances beyond our control, we have to revoke your offer letters at this time. We have encountered some difficulties that will cause us to not be able to open when we originally thought,” Charby wrote in the email obtained by AL.com. “I deeply apologize for the inconvenience this has caused to each of you. When we have more information on a new opening date, we will reach out to see if you are still interested in joining the team here at Opulence.”

Tyler Weber was one of the front of the house managers in that meeting.

“People are devastated,” he said. “People quit their jobs, put in two weeks notices and now some of them can’t get their jobs back.”

He added that the bar had prioritized hiring LGBTQ+ people, many of whom are gender-nonconforming, that were looking forward to a safe workplace environment.

Charby noted that it “gut punches” him every time he thinks about that, adding that one of the managers had relocated from Las Vegas for the role.

“This is not what I was intending to do,” he said. “I was not trying to hurt anybody here. I wanted to do something that would benefit the city.”

Charby said that he is searching to secure money to pay the six managers for those three unpaid days of work.

Weber said he felt led astray by the owners that the bar was closer to opening than it actually was.

“They were just rushing us and rushing us and rushing us so hard,” he said. “I was just like, ‘Well, what’s the rush because we don’t have any licensing?”

Opulence’s licensing has been held up by contracting issues, Charby said.

“We expected to be okay,” Charby said. “I didn’t share things all the way through the process,” he said. “I didn’t want them to be worried about things. Maybe I should have, maybe I’m just hard-headed.”

Charby told AL.com earlier this year that Opulence would operate as a taco bar from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., with drag entertainment in the evening, and as a full-service bar and restaurant through the night, with drag brunches on the weekend.

As for now, the owners are searching for a new source of funding.

“I still want to do this for the city,” Charby said. “To be honest, I’m not 100% sure the city wants us anymore. I’m hoping that changes. I’m hoping that when they see what we try to put together for them, if we can get it across the line, that that will change.”