Jojo’s Cafe is hoping to reinstate its open mic events. (Dale Boyd / Osoyoos Times)

By Dale Boyd

Osoyoos Times

While they are still waiting for approval from provincial liquor authorities, open mic nights are likely to return — and be the main focus of live music at Jojo’s Café in Osoyoos moving forward.

The liquor license Jojo’s currently holds disallowed audience participation, which owner Joanne Muirhead said she was unaware of, until a visit from the new liquor control officer earlier this month.

“The audience is not allowed to sing along or anything like that during any performances,” Muirhead said. “So what we have done is suspend our open mics until we can get this whole thing happening again.”

The first step was getting permission from the town to vary their licence, which was granted at Monday’s regular meeting with Coun. CJ Rhodes calling the decision “an easy one.”

Director of planning and development services, Gina MacKay, said at Monday’s meeting the only change to the previous liquor license is checking an audience participation box on a form.

“So Joanne (Muirhead) is looking for support to tick the box,” MacKay said followed by laughter from council. “I think as a resort municipality we recognize that entertainment in our community is a good thing, so I recommend we allow Joanne to tick the box.”

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Next, Jojo’s has to get approval from the Liquor Control and Licensing Board.

“It’s not a done deal yet,” Muirhead said. “As soon as we get the go-ahead from the Liquor Control Board, then we are going to focus almost exclusively on open mics.”

Five years of local music at the café has brought great times, and expanded the interest in live shows for the community, but the frequency is going to slow down when it comes to booking artists at Jojo’s.

“What we found is we were putting on our concerts and we had less people coming. It’s tough for the musicians because they are playing here at a small venue for a reduced amount. Sometimes they are just doing it by donation,” Muirhead said.

The open mics have been well-received, with an abundance of local talent in town and in surrounding communities coming out to show off their skills, Muirhead said, and so that is where her focus is going to be moving forward.

“There’s not a lot of places for (local musicians) to go to practice to be on stage, get in front of a live audience, get nervous and throw up, all that stuff,” Muirhead laughed. “We thought, let’s encourage that because it’s a really safe, encouraging atmosphere for people to do that.”

Live shows are not gone forever at the Main Street Café, she noted.

“It is not to say we won’t do live music events anymore, we will, we’re just not going to do them a couple of times a month. It was just too many,” Muirhead said.

The remaining shows for 2019 at Jojo’s include blues act Bella Cat on Sept. 7; the upbeat roots-reggae dance music of Chipko Jones on Sept. 20; Australian acoustic singer-songwriter Daniel Champagne on Oct. 9; and rockabilly blues and country soul acoustic trio Vagabond on Nov. 1.