‘We’re like puppies out of the pound.’ Throngs flock to Glenwood South in mask-free party
As midnight loomed Friday, the line outside The Village stretched more than 100 deep, crowded with partiers dressed in Hawaiian shirts, knee-high boots and stiletto heels with sequins — all eager to dance the pandemic away.
Gov. Roy Cooper’s relaxed COVID-19 restrictions on bars and restaurants took effect Friday at 5 p.m., but the Glenwood South crowd needed no reminder, its sidewalks packed with giddy celebration that spilled into the streets.
For blocks, revelers hugged as if a global weight had finally been lifted, almost none of them wearing masks but many declaring themselves freshly vaccinated. Motorcycles roared as they rolled past, radios blaring. Muscle cars revved their engines at stop lights as young men in cowboy hats leaned out the windows.
“This is a pre-COVID day,” announced David Carlson, who lives a few blocks off Glenwood Avenue.
“The warmer the weather, the shorter the shorts,” joked Anna Fernandez, his companion in the crowd.
Cooper announced Tuesday that the state would ease several COVID-19 restrictions, covering everything from retail, gyms and salons to sports arenas and gathering size. The new executive order is in effect through April 30.
Restaurants, breweries and wineries can open at 75% capacity indoors and 100% capacity outdoors — an increase from the 50% that has been in effect for restaurants for much of the past year.
Meanwhile, bars are allowed to open at 50% capacity indoors, up from 30% since February. An alcohol curfew was lifted; it had been 11 p.m. since Feb. 26.
In all instances, the state’s mask mandate remains intact, and businesses are required to enforce social distancing, which may adjust the actual number of people allowed indoors.
Packed outdoor patios
On Glenwood South, which drew pandemic-defying crowds last summer, even as coronavirus cases surged, bouncers patrolled the doors like they would on any warm Friday night, appearing to enforce a one-in, one-out entrance policy.
But the strip offers a string of outdoor patios, and the drinks there flowed unabated. As the clock passed 11 p.m. Friday, beer bottles lined the bars and crowded the tables as fast as they could be ordered. The crowd on a single block easily topped a thousand.
“We’re like puppies out of the pound,” said Sydney Gilliam of Raleigh, laughing with friends and celebrating her second vaccine shot.
Health officials this week said the state has made considerable progress in combating the virus, and the governor moved up the date to April 7 when all adults will be eligible for a shot. N.C. State University opened a “PackVax” clinic on Wednesday, opening the door for college students to get long-awaited shots.
“We said today this is the happiest we’ve felt,” said Cammie Hegel, an N.C. State political science major who described herself as both a vaccinated student and a relative of the German philosopher, Georg Hegel. “It’s genuinely the best feeling ever.”
But vaccinations have not been widely available long enough to have accommodated the hundreds jamming Glenwood South bars, and many people partying there described a catharsis brought on by spring weather and reopened watering holes. Missy Elliott’s “Get Ur Freak On” provided a soundtrack as partiers trotted down Glenwood dressed to slay, one woman yelling, “I’ve got a vaccine in my purse!”
But while case numbers and hospitalizations have dropped dramatically from their wintertime peak, Cooper and Dr. Mandy Cohen, the Secretary of the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, have cautioned that the pandemic is far from over, requiring caution and prudence as North Carolina returns to normal.
The state logged more than 2,000 new COVID-19 cases on Friday with 933 patients hospitalized, according to DHHS.
“We just don’t want that many people coming together at one time, because the more people you get together, the more chance that the virus has to be transmitted,” Cooper said this week.
But on Glenwood, a party bus arrived near midnight with disco lights flashing. Ball games flashed on big-screen televisions visible from the street.
The pandemic hid from sight with Saturday night on the way.
This story was originally published March 27, 2021 at 11:50 AM.