Local musicians and concertgoers may be left out in the cold as local all-age clubs face tougher capacity limits in the wake of last month’s Rhode Island club disaster.

In the days following the incident, which left nearly 100 dead and hundreds more injured, local music venues came under scrutiny from local law enforcement officials for their fire safety.

The major issue is related to the clubs’ capacities, and club owners speculate only all-age venues have been targeted. The True Love Coffeehouse, the Capitol Garage and The Boardwalk have all been visited and warned about overcrowding.

“The police got a call from a parent who thought we had too many people there. The show happened a day before the Rhode Island incident and the parent called two days after … so it was probably just a nervous parent, but it’s hard to say,” said Jerry Mitchell, owner of the Capitol Garage.

Although Capitol’s capacity has remained the same, they received a stern warning from police about exceeding that number.

“They said, now we can’t exceed our capacity, not even by one person. Our occupancy is lower than it should be and to get it raised we have to get a dance and concert permit – it’s a lengthy process,” said Mitchell.

Mitchell also said this is the first time in 10 years they have been told there was any sort of problem.

That same weekend, another popular venue, the Boardwalk, had its capacity cut by nearly 30 percent after a similar anonymous phone call was received by the police, according to the owner, Mark Earl.

True Love Coffeehouse was also warned by officials during a recent show that drew well over 100 people, though they were never given an official capacity limit.

“We’re just really not commenting right now because we don’t really know what’s going on,” said Kevin Seconds, owner of True Love. “Right now, we’re just keeping the shows small, to about 25. We may start doing two shows a night to compensate.”

Seconds said he has been trying to contact the fire marshal ever since they were made aware of a problem, but his calls have not been returned.

Club owners say the new restrictions have hurt business.

“It’s pretty dramatic. See, part of the problem is the rumors that floated around. A lot of people thought we stopped having shows, some people thought it was no longer all ages,” said Mitchell. “Now it’s pretty much getting the word out that we’re still all ages and we still do shows.”

Local musicians are feeling the affects of the occupancy changes as well. Local band Radio Cure has had to completely alter their plans.

“We’re playing at True Love this weekend, and it was supposed to be our CD release show,” said David Carl, singer/guitarist of the band. “But with this new capacity, we had to push it back. This whole thing is really limiting our exposure.”

“This whole thing is totally reactionary,” said Dave Middleton, singer/guitarist of local duo Squish the Bad Man. “In the end, this will do more harm than good to the city.”

The fire marshal couldn’t be reached for comment, and his representatives declined to comment.

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