If you're looking for Gusto, stay away from Gusto's Bar.
This place is extremely shady and caters only to their favorite drunken locals. My best friend and I decided to look for fun things to do on 420, even though we rarely go out to bars in Barre, VT. Gusto's was having a "GLOW" party with black lights, body/face painting, and a DJ. Both of us purchased tickets. The event details did not mention that you could not smoke outside of the bar. Because of the laws in Vermont, we couldn't smoke inside. We understand and accept that.
We smoked a joint in the backyard/lawn area and were asked to leave. Smoking got us kicked out of a 420 party. No warning or review of the rules was given to us. Just a quick kick out. In the event that we had received a warning instead, I would have respected the rules and not continued smoking. A 44 minute evening wasted us $77.00, and what was the point? The whole event was a money-making scheme. My friends and I will not waste time and money at this bar in the future.
My email to the owner after they responded to my "Google Review"...
"Good morning,
I am the person who left you a bad review last night on Google. You asked me to reach out directly, so here I am.
I want to start by saying, I understand that smoking on your premises is illegal. I would never intentionally want to get a business in trouble. However, I really don't think advertising for a 420 party, and not expecting some people to smoke on accident, is a reason to throw people out. I asked my friend and neither of us remember ANY signs saying no to smoking or vaping. I also don't feel that the details on the event page were super transparent. It would have been nice to get a warning before getting thrown out. We are the type of people who would respect rules/laws immediately and wouldn't have continued smoking for the rest of the evening. I've been to Gusto's enough times at this point to know that I've seen other customers doing "illegal things" and they have never been thrown out by bouncers without a warning first.
I'm just disappointed that we spent so much money at an event and didn't get a little bit of grace for not knowing that smoking outside was against the law at a 420 event. The only way that I would take my review down at this point, is if my friend who bought our tickets, got a full REFUND.
You don't have to agree with me. However, I believe it is crucial to make rules/laws super clear so that things like this don't happen again. The tickets and event page should have had more explicit details, and you could have had bouncers remind people at the door while checking IDs. Again, this is why I think the whole thing was a money grab for your business. Don't expect customers to see "signs" stating this when there is so many people and things going on around you.
I am just super disappointed. I think the whole thing could have been handled so much differently.
Thanks,
Anna"
My response to Jacki's email:
"Hi Jacki,
We were not aware of the strict marijuana laws until now. I didn't realize being outside was considered illegal. My apologies. The "event description" was not easily accessible. It took a lot of scrolling on Facebook to find it. It should have been in the event description from the start. And I was only referring to having extra signage at this event, because it was literally advertised as a 420 event. I didn't mean for the rest of time.
I think the most disappointing thing about your responses to not only me, but other upset customers reviews, is your lack of understanding and empathy. You have to ALWAYS be in the right. It doesn't matter what we say or how we explain our experience.
Keep your money and pride. We won't ever be returning.
Kindest regards,
Anna" read more
