COVID-19 restrictions gone, Old Town Wichita parties on with packed bars, clubs
On the first weekend since Gov. Laura Kelly and the Sedgwick County Commission removed the last regulations to fight COVID-19, hundreds of Wichitans were partying like it’s 2019.
Friday night got off to a slow start, but by 11 p.m. Old Town bars and clubs were packing in customers for a night of celebration after being closed for two months in an effort to fight the spread of the coronavirus.
In addition to the crowds in the clubs, knots of people moved through the streets, hugging friends they met and in some cases, turning cartwheels.
“It feels like a freaking high school reunion,” said Megan Gilbert, who works in Old Town and for a roofing company. “I’m seeing all of these people that it seems like I haven’t seen in years.”
Gilbert said she’s not worried about the virus spreading through Old Town bars and clubs because she knows how long they have been preparing to open safely.
“I guess I’m just not as worried as some people,” she said.
Her boyfriend and co-worker, Kendall Schultz, said he wasn’t concerned about the virus at all.
He said he thinks the virus threat was “one of the biggest government conspiracies” of recent years and has been superseded in the public eye by violent protests in Minneapolis over the police-caused death of George Floyd.
“Are they going to make all of the people that rioted - protested - quarantine?” he asked.
Not everybody was celebrating.
Eric Ivey, who lives in Old Town and was riding his bike through the district Friday night, said he’s worried about the clubs reopening.
He had COVID-19 earlier this spring and fears that all the partying could lead to more people catching the virus, he said.
“It’s a little too early to open up completely,” Ivey said. “It’s too much, too soon. We should have waited a couple more weeks.
“Putting some sort of cap on capacity would have been reasonable. But it’s back to the way it was before, and people are out partying like hell.”
Sabryna Jones and Kristina Baran were bar-hopping in Old Town for the first time since mid-March.
They said they have several friends who work in the Old Town district, and they were out on Friday to show their support.
Jones said she actually thought it would be more crowded.
“It felt like people were more distanced out, like they were more spaced out than they normally are,” she said.
Several popular night spots remained closed, some out of concern for the coronavirus and others working to hire and train new staff to replace workers who aren’t coming back after being laid off for two months.
Old Town had been more like a ghost town since mid-March when the County Commission banned large public gatherings and Kelly followed up with a stay-at-home order that completely shuttered bars and clubs.
Under pressure from Republican legislators, Kelly lifted her order on Tuesday, abandoning what had been a plan to slowly and carefully reopen the state’s economy. Her action shifted the responsibility for COVID-19 prevention to individual counties.
On Wednesday, Sedgwick County commissioners decided not to enact any binding rules on businesses, clearing the way for bars and nightclubs to open to their full capacity.
County commissioners said they were counting on businesses and residents to practice social distancing to keep the virus from flaring up again.
That wasn’t happening Friday night.
Bars put out fewer tables in an effort to keep at least 6 feet of separation between groups of customers, but most patrons weren’t taking the hint.
They stood in the spaces between tables and danced in clusters on the dance floor.
The only masks to be seen were being worn by some servers working in the clubs.
State Secretary of Health and Environment Dr. Lee Norman said Friday that he doesn’t think Kansas bars and nightclubs should be open yet because of the high risk of spreading the infection through large crowds.
Asked about Old Town, Norman called all large gatherings “ill advised” and expressed hope that parents could intervene where counties have not.
“If the officials feel that it’s safe to reopen in their counties, we would still hope that people can vote with their feet,” he said. “Essentially, if people want to go, they’re going to go.
“I hope that parents would give young people guidance and that they would accept that guidance for themselves when it comes to bars and things that are inherently unsafe.”
However, it wasn’t just the young who owned this night.
Terry Shaver was out with a group celebrating his 60th birthday and said he didn’t feel uncomfortable about the COVID-19 risk.
“People are staying more or less away (from each other),” he said as he left a rooftop bar party in Old Town.
Across the county line in Sumner County, hundreds of people tried their luck at the Kansas Star Casino.
It was far from capacity but a large enough turnout to surprise 70-year-old Janis Jackson, who was there with her husband to celebrate his birthday.
She said she felt “OK” on her first leisure excursion since the pandemic hit. She was up slightly at the slots, where machines were open on the ends of rows to maintain social distancing.
Jackson, of Wichita, was one of about a fourth of the casino patrons wearing a protective mask. That and the hand sanitizer in her purse kept her feeling safer, she said.
“I’m pretty good. I’m comfortable,” Jackson said. “I can’t live in fear. I just try to be cautious.”
At the entrance to the tables, a sign says “it may not be possible to maintain” social distancing of 6 feet or more at those games and people should consider the additional risk.
Before sitting down, an employee sprays down the seat and area for each player and the dealer squirts hand sanitizer into the gambler’s hands.
Every now and then, a faint voice could be heard over the talking and the slots reminding people of social distancing.
This story was originally published May 30, 2020 at 10:49 AM.
