Postcrypt will return to Chapel, without guards

It’s celebration time for Postcrypt Coffeehouse.

After a year and a half of tension with the administration, Postcrypt, the student-run music venue that hosts weekly folk concerts, will return to its home in the basement of St. Paul’s Chapel—without security guards. Friday and Saturday night concerts will resume on campus in March, board members announced Tuesday night.

“We’ve won, we’re safe! And we’re ready to get back to our home in St. Paul’s Chapel,” Galen Boone, BC ’12 and manager of Postcrypt, wrote in an email to Postcrypt members.

Following a long period of a stressful relations, the Postcrypt board has come to form a stable relationship with Jewelnel Davis, the University chaplain and director of Earl Hall , Boone said in an interview Tuesday.

“The chaplain’s really gracious,” Boone said. “She wants to support us because we are special to the chapel.”

The chaplain’s office sanctioned the group last year following anonymous reports about underage drinking at the venue.

Since then, Postcrypt has abided by the administration’s ban on selling organic microbrew beer, coffee, and popcorn, which removed their main source of revenue. The group was also required to hire a security guard for concerts, at a cost of $1,600 a month.

Without funds to pay for the security, the group, which began 46 years ago, needed to borrow emergency funds twice, Boone said.

The coffeehouse’s board held numerous meetings with Davis, starting in early 2010. But when they began speaking about alcohol issues, conversations turned into talks about the group’s end.

“Now we were fighting for survival,” Boone described.

The Chaplain could not be reached for comment Tuesday night.

Moving forward, the concerts will no longer require security guards, though the group will still not be allowed to sell beer.

The resolution is a success for the group, whose members had been anxious to resolve the situation before many in the managing board graduated.

Boone credited support from faculty with helping Postcrypt managers bring about the changes.

“From the University administrators and employees who worked with us and vouched for us, and the students who heard about our plight and joined us, to the musicians and bands who keep coming back to play, and our Postcrypt regulars, who’ve been coming for years and decades and didn’t give up on us—thank you so much,” Boone wrote in the email.

The coffeehouse has been under a month-long suspension from the chaplain’s office due to overbooking one weekend last year, and has been playing at a downtown venue.

While Boone said the downtown venue had been great after the long-standing tensions at the chapel, she said they look forward to returning to their old home.

“We’re proud to be in the chapel as one of the student groups,” Boone said. “It will be a return to the old Postcrypt.”

karla.jimenez@columbiaspectator.com