Last weekend, in a new building overlooking the city skyline in a gentrifying neighborhood in East Nashville, organizers announced a party on social media called “The VIP Viewing of the Fashion House.” Masks were scarce. Hookahs were full. And bodies by the hundreds in tight pack and write. Judging by videos posted on Instagram the other day, Nashville looked like it had opened its own Hedonism resort.
One city resident walking by DaddysJuiced appeared in a video showing him kneeling with his face buried in a woman’s ass. DaddysJuiced, built into one of the massive windows of the house, did his thing as he waited through a long line of people to enter the street below.
Just under three miles away in the Broadway entertainment district of Nashville, a lesser analingus-centric, albeit similar, batshit scene emerged, one that lasted for weeks. A sign erected in front of the three-stage drinking temple Honky Tonk Central flashed, “Wear Mask Its the Law!” but few heed the punctuation-too-damn mandate. Tourist mills ran with masks under their chin, in hand, or without one. IN photo on social media showed two bare face fragile lifting beer as she posed for a selfie with Metro Nashville police officers. On the corner of Fifth and Broadway, a stone’s throw from the Ryman Auditorium, a stretch pick-up truck painted drinkers and their red plastic cups at night.
Welcome to Nashville during a pandemic, where the party continues unabated.
Lower Broad now exactly. No masks, no distance, cops do nothing, it’s like every other Saturday night.
When will this stop, @ JohnCooper4Nash? #Coronaspread pic.twitter.com/ASF5h8QAr5
– NashvilleResist 🗳️ # 86DaysToNov3 (@NashvilleResist) August 2, 2020
We should see it coming. For nearly 10 years, Nashville has cultivated its image as Las Vegas East (its nickname is NashVegas, after all), a city that advertises itself as a tourist-friendly destination to drink too much and become cluttered. Romanticized as groundbreaking for up-and-coming country singers playing for tips in overhyped coverbars like Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge and Kid Rock’s Badass Honky Tonk and Rock & Roll Steakhouse, the district on weekends was pre-pandemic typically thrilling and full. The threat of a suckerpunch makes her feel sad. Party buses, wagons pulled by tractors, and mobile hot tubs crawl through with drunken tourists drumming inside. It’s a sad hell that not even Kristofferson could have imagined in a song.
Until this weekend, not much of this had changed during the pandemic. Nashville, while publicly trying to fight a contagious virus, remained addicted to tourism. In early July, just days after the city abruptly canceled its Fourth of July fireworks display due to a rise in COVID-19 cases, the city crashed its Twitter account asked, “What’s your first stop in Nashville?” Most responses refer to various bars and landmarks; a few tweeted “hospital” as “COVID test.” It was not an open appeal to visit, but still the tourists came.
The city has sent mixed signals, says Erin McAnally, a writer and consultant who, along with business partner Chelsea Crowell, last week published a joint op-ed on the ongoing Broadway problem in the Tennessee Lookout. “They can’t have it both ways,” she says Rolling stone. “You can not leave it open to interpretation and have tourists who come or send these significant ones who bring more tourists here.”
Nashville is making some modest progress in combating the excitement – infections averaged about 400 a day last month before dropping to its current daily levels of 250 – but not with the help of the partygoers’ rotating cast. In the past three days alone, masks have become a common sight in downtown, after Nashville Mayor John Cooper last Tuesday promised to get things under control. Following his lead, Metro police on Wednesday made their first arrest for a masking offender – a 61-year-old black man who gave his address as the Nashville Rescue Mission, a homeless shelter. (Prosecutors were later dropped.) On Friday, MNPD issued 20 citations and made one arrest; Saturday saw 18 citations and three arrests.
Along with (ultimately) lifting the mask mandate and closing down the ‘transpotainment’ industry of party buses that run downtown, the mayor on Saturday implemented a new order promotion that bans downtown restaurants and bars from drinking alcohol. to sell. The recording of the downtown area, near historic Music Row, underscores how Broadway’s behavior, like the virus itself, is spreading. Bars in the city center have been busy, and last weekend members of a bachelorette party performed in the Gulch district of the city, with one occupant apparently intentionally coughing on a restaurant employee, after she were robbed for tables of relocation in violation of the social-distancing policy of the food.
“Nashville currently has a mask mandate in place, no bars can be open and all restaurants must finish dinner service within 10 hours. It is necessary for our visitors to comply with these restrictions,” Dr. Alex Jahangir, Chairman of the Nashville COVID-19 Task Force and Chairman of the Nashville Health Board, explains Rolling stone. “We do not want their trip to Nashville to end with them catching the virus and bringing it home. While many of our more healthy and younger visitors may not care if they get the virus, if they take it back to their communities, they can infect family or friends who may not be as tolerant of the virus and end up in the hospital. of morgue. One carefree weekend of fun in Nashville is not worth that long sequel. ”
Tourists who take the virus with them home are an ongoing concern, and one that remains difficult to follow. “Tracing of contacts is abysmal,” says McAnally, who commissioned COVID-19 alongside her husband.
With mandates now being maintained, there are signs that party culture is migrating to escape the constraints. At least three beer cans – including one named ‘Rowdy’ Rona ‘- were detected 16 miles south near Cool Springs this weekend. They were quickly stopped by local police, but tourists clustered in the bars of the area. A video taken outside one establishment showed dozens of people drinking in the parking lot.
Crowell, the daughter of Rosanne Cash and Rodney Crowell (and granddaughter of Johnny Cash), says that Nashville’s history of prioritizing downtown tourism comes at the expense of the city’s culture, small businesses, and, now, the health of its inhabitants. In response, she filed an online petition for the city to close the city’s Broadway bars until the pandemic is controlled.
“The truth is that in the last decades or so, give or take, many lovers have been offered to developers and many incentives to make this other incarnation of the tourism sector in the inner city. It was always touristy in the city center and always touristy, but it is completely different than before, ‘she says. “As long as these bars are open, they will attract tourists who want a good time and do not worry about wearing masks and getting close to each other – all that scientists advise.”
Owners of small beams are also beginning to raise their voices. The owners of Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge, the Fox Bar & Cocktail Club, and Chopper Tiki – all forced to close since March – held a press conference recently asking the mayor to enforce downtown health regulations. While some honky tonks and restaurants have remained closed, such as Robert’s Western World, Acme Feed & Seed, and the Southern Steak & Oyster, other liquor establishments have surrounded the mandates by their classification as a restaurant.
Dee’s owner Amy Richardson, a favorite bar and live music venue among locals like Margo Price, calls it a “direct slap in the face for all of us who have followed the rules.”
‘The feel of the city is that [Broadway] triumphs everyone. Keep the money in check, and nothing outside of that matters, ”says Richardson.
She and her husband Daniel Walker have taken over disaster loans to keep their barn at bay and have redesigned a new beer garden in the garden with social distance in mind for when they can re-permit. Not one of them knows when that might be. “Fortunately for us, our cost to close per month is not prohibitive,” Walker says. ‘But some bars and locations, that’s not the case. They have astronomical rents and cannot continue to throw money at their landlords. ”
The Nashville music community is also beginning to mobilize, with artists such as Caylee Hammack, Maren Morris, and Cassadee Pope speaking out in support of small businesses and neighborhood bars. ‘I get that the tourist trap is our money [maker], but if you kill all the companies locally, then you are not helping anyone, ”Hammack says Rolling stone.
“Broadway beams currently benefiting from these pulls are cannibalizing our small businesses in Nashville that have followed the health orders since day 1,” Morris tweeted on August 4th.
Paramore singer Hayley Williams, a longtime Nashville resident, immediately attracted tourists. ‘Please do not come to Nashville. Plan your bachelorette party somewhere else this time, ”she said in an Instagram video. “If you really believe in Nashville, do not come here until this shit is treated.”
Slow, glacial, the message seems to be coming through. Downtown, downtown, and the Gulch neighborhood – all tourist hot spots – had minimal foot traffic on Sunday afternoons. While there were dinners on some patios and rooftops, Broadway bars such as Tootsie’s and Kid Rock’s were closed. Of the pedestrians who were out, about half wore good masks – a statue of Elvis in front of a gift shop sported a mask to help get the point across.
But skeptics like Crowell remain skeptical. While encouraged to look at Broadway in a safer direction, she stresses that the progress does not correct what is happening elsewhere in the city, away from the tourist epicenter. Richardson’s Dee’s Lounge and others like it remain closed and Nashville still registers new COVID-19 cases every day. De Nashville Health Department added 190 new cases on Sunday, bringing the total of Davidson County to 22,904.
“City leaders have responded to our pressure and outrage, and the result is that the lower Broadway party scene is moving in a safer direction,” Crowell says. “The Broadway beams remain the sharp wheel, getting more fat every weekend – resources, media coverage and city dollars. While I respect the new efforts to create a safer area, I am aware that the rest of Nashville is treated with the same interest as downtown and that the people who live here are prioritized over those who visit. “
There is at least a glimmer of hope. On Sunday, Crowell’s petition for his goal went beyond 25,000 signatures.
