Local community tries to save Holly Lanes

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    MICHIGAN, USA (WNEM) — After years of renovations and improvements the owner of Holly Lanes was ready to see all the hard work pay off.

Unfortunately, the pandemic happened and now the bowling center is struggling to survive. The bowling community is trying to save Holly Lanes.

“We said ok how do we do this right, and we did it, and then we get shut down again,” Brian Aubuchon the owner Holly Lanes said.

COVID-19 has done Aubuchon’s business no favors this year after renovating the place.

“I took the last bit of money that I had left to make it safe, I invested back to do it right and the goal post moved, and then you’re thinking well what do I need to do,” Aubuchon said.

The bowling alley in Holly has only been open a total of 66 days this year. This put Aubuchon into a bad spot and leaving the future of the place uncertain.

“People didn’t feel comfortable coming in, and that’s ok, we don’t want anybody there they didn’t want to be there, and we went as far as inviting the Oakland County Health Department in,” Aubuchon said.

Community members stepped in to start a go fund me to keep the business from going under called “Brian and Holly Lanes need our help.”

Now, they are thinking of out of the box to at least pay some of the bills that keep rolling in.

“What do we need to do to get to January so we came up with the idea to do pictures with Santa, so Santa Claus yours truly, will be in the parking lot on Saturday,” Aubuchon said.

Aubuchon said this was going to be the year that Holly Lanes starts to pay off from all the money he put into the place. Maybe next year they will still be around.

“Everybody is struggling, and we want to help as much as we can, but we need a foundation in order to help,” Aubuchon said.

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