Out of concern of large crowd gatherings, many bar owners say they will be closed on St. Patrick’s Day.
The holiday celebrating Irish heritage is March 17 and would draw massive crowds of revelers dressed in green and looking for a pint of Guinness beer or several. However, bar owners say they will not be open out of fear of violating the city’s COVID-19 restrictions on crowd size.
Many people crowded into whatever bars were open over the weekend to get to celebrate ahead of St. Patrick's Day.
Because of that, Irish pubs such as Tracey’s, Parasols, and Finn McCool’s decided they will close and the beer will not be flowing on St. Patrick's Day.
“While most people followed all protocols to the tee this weekend, there were a number of people who actively disputed wearing a mask and following our guidelines. It was enough to say that a St. Patrick's day crowd would not allow us to stay compliant with state and city rules,” Finn McCool’s Irish Pub said in a social media post.
“We still had the size under control, because we told people you had to move. But it was more of the flagrant disregard of what we're all supposed to be doing,” Finn McCool’s owner Sean Kennedy told WWLTV.
Kennedy says after seeing the crowd's behavior over the weekend, he decided it wouldn’t be worth the risk to be open on St. Patrick’s Day.
“Certainly when we evaluated the benefit versus the risk, the risk way outweighed the benefit. So if I lost a few dollars in business and a few thousand dollars in profits, I'm OK with that,” Kennedy said.