Paducah Kentucky, United States: According to a bar owner at Paducah, they are in the midst of the NCAA Basketball Tournament and the bars and restaurants in west Kentucky are witnessing more customers for a little longer than usual.
The reason for this is the announcement made by Kentucky’s Governor, Andy Beshear, to extend the curfew in the city from 11 p.m. to midnight central time.
Reportedly, due to continuous decline in the Covid-19 cases, the Governor of the state briefed the audience on Thursday and gave bars and restaurants news of relief.
Beshear said, “Bars and restaurants can serve until midnight and doors must close by 1 a.m.”
Things have changed a lot as compared to last year. Even after restrictions being lifted, initially, people were reluctant to socialize and go back to their normal way of spending weekends.
But, announcements from governments as well as the ongoing NCAA Basketball Tournament gave them a little dose of motivation to let go and enjoy once again.
According to a local news source in Paducah, Chef Kevin Dowdy of Over/Under, a well-known sports bar, said that they are expecting to bring in more money because of more people coming in.
In the words of Dowdy, “It helps a lot, I mean we can get an extra couple grand in business in that hour you know, so I mean it really does help,”
Dowdy expressed that they opened it on St. Patrick Day, expecting the crowd, but, interestingly, the NCAA basketball tournament turned out to be the factor that pulled and attracted the crowd to spend their weekend at the Bar.
As Dowdy said, ”We wanted to get open right around the time the tournament started, so we could get all these people here to watch some sports,”
One of the customers having fun at the bar said, “I’m just here to eat a beer, have some food, and watch some games.”
Most of the people there were cheering for their teams. Some lost, some won, but they were cherishing the moment and had a good time.
Dowdy said, they will continue to strictly follow all the COVID-19 rules and regulations.
“All the tables have to at least be six feet apart, we have fewer seats because of it, but I mean it doesn’t hurt business that much,” Dowdy told the channel.
The city of Kentucky is slowly and gradually recovering from the damage done by the virus.
In a recent tweet, Governor Andy Beshear announced, ten straight weeks of declining Covid-19 cases. Reportedly, 316 new cases were found on Sunday. The positivity rate has gone below 3%. The Governor also announced 1.175 million Kentuckians have been vaccinated.
This is a sigh of relief for Kentucky, as Businesses are picking up, markets are reopening, the economy is reviving, sports is back, and things are going back to normal.
However, everything is not going to go as per the plan as there are reports of a possible second wave, circulating across the world.
The government of Kentucky will be very cautious when it comes to keeping a check on whether the regulatory norms are being observed or not.
