NEW ORLEANS– The City of New Orleans recently shut down trumpeter Kermit Ruffins’ bar, “Mother in Law Lounge” in the Treme. Now fans are helping Kermit in the meantime through donating to a Go Fund Me account.

Like music notes, 2020 has gone up and down for world-famous trumpeter, Kermit Ruffins.

“Anytime you’re not making money for 7 or 8 months, it starts to get hard,” he said.

The Mother in Law Lounge was recently shut down by the City for violating capacity and social distance rules.

“We had a few repasses here and we had more people than we were supposed to and somebody reported that we had too many people,” Ruffins said.

Ruffins owns up to the violation, but says there were crowds of people across the street under the Claiborne bridge.

“We can’t control the crowd under the bridge. Half of the people never came in the bar,” he said.

Kermit Ruffins is facing the music.

“We’ll just have to obey the rules, we have no choice,” he said.

There is a courtyard on the side of the lounge to provide more social distancing.

Feeling the struggle and strain of being closed, Kermit has turned to his fans through a Go Fund Me account. They’ve already donated $20-thousand to help.

“It feels good to know that people care and they are helping us out,” Ruffins said.

With this money and with the City’s ok, he hopes to safely reopen his bar soon.

“We have to show a floor plan of how we are going to have people inside not crowded,” he said.

Despite the challenges, Kermit believes the beat will go on.

Once the Mother In Law Lounge reopens, Kermit said he’d like to do free lunches for people in the neighborhood.

Kermit is also going around town playing “Happy Birthday” on his trumpet at a social distance for people. If you’re interested you can email him at ruffinsmusic5@outlook.com