CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) - The Cedar Rapids St. Patrick’s Day reboot was estimated to bring in more than a thousand people to support downtown bars.
Local bar owners created the event so people could come out and support local businesses and officially celebrate St. Patrick’s Day after restaurants and bars were forced to close due to COVID 19.
“I celebrate St. Patrick’s Day every year,” said Brad Kness of Cedar Rapids. “I was working at Jimmy Z’s last year helping grill. It was huge; we must’ve sold $500-$600 of food out front. This year they didn’t even do half that.”
Kness said a St. Patrick’s Day reboot needed to happen for the business after having to close down due to COVID 19. He said he would be out until bar close Saturday.
“I started here at Jimmy Z’s and went down to Mr. B’s,” he said.
Local bar owners invited people to come to have a drink and support the local bars. Over a thousand people showed interest in the event online. That drew concerns of social distancing and spreading COVID 19. Health officials said the most recent spike in positive COVID cases stemmed from social young adults, but Kness said he wasn’t concerned.
“Chances are someone in this bar probably has it,” he said. “Asymptomatic people are a pretty big thing. You don’t even show signs that they have it. It’s not hurting me; call it selfish, call all you want, but I’m not worried about it.”
The event organizers said people were encouraged to stay 6 feet apart from each other, hand sanitizer would be available, and establishments will have a strict capacity. However, this evening bars only had handfuls of people in each one of them. Kness was hoping more people would have shown up during the day but said the low numbers are likely due to people afraid of spreading the virus.
“Everywhere was expecting more people and really nobody really showed up,” he said. “There were a lot more people talking about it on Facebook that they were going and I didn’t see too many people out.”
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July 26, 2020 at 10:27AM
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Cedar Rapids St. Patrick's Day Reboot didn't bring as many people as originally hoped - KCRG
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