With its dynamic music scene and Ybor City historical district loaded with bars and dining establishments, Tampa has a nightlife hard to beat throughout Florida.
The city will have a huge factor to celebration on Sunday– as the site of Super Bowl LV and the first city to host its own football team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, in the championship game.
The anticipated arrival of countless abundant fans and the typical celebrations that mark the Super Bowl would seem to be a logistical headache for Mayor Jane Castor, who looked for unsuccessfully last year to close bars in the city to stop the spread of covid-19 and has actually encountered the state’s Republican guv about the knowledge of quickly opening.
However 11 months into the pandemic, she feels the city and the National Football League have found out enough to hold the occasion safely– though it will not be precisely normal.
” We are climbing up on the world stage and one thing I can guarantee you is Tampa Bay is going to dance like we have actually never ever danced in the past,” she stated at a current interview. “We are making certain this is a safe occasion for everybody.”
Castor stated she supports the NFL’s choice to permit 22,000 viewers at the Super Bowl– consisting of 7,500 health employees who have actually gotten both doses of the vaccine.
And she said she is happy the NFL and the Tampa Bay Super Bowl Host Committee limited main events connected with the video game to outdoor activities. The Super Bowl Experience, a seven-day event that includes live music, food, drinks and football themed activities, is being held at several parks along the 2.7-mile Tampa Riverwalk.
However, the city will continue to implement its face mask regulation inside bars through the week, stated Castor’s spokesperson. While Gov. Ron DeSantis has not allowed the city government to great consumers who do not mask up, it can punish entrepreneur for failure to require customers to wear masks.
On Thursday, Castor signed an executive order mandating the use of face coverings outdoors in locations downtown and near the arena designated for events connected to the Super Bowl.
Face masks will be required to go to the game, along with for all those going through Tampa International Airport. The airport is offering covid testing for any visitors who request it.
To be sure, many individuals in the city are still bucking the assistance to use masks. City and county officials continue to look for methods to encourage more compliance and the Hillsborough County commission in December stated that only people who are seated and consuming or drinking in indoor bars or dining establishments can eliminate their masks
In an interview late last year, Castor, a former police chief, said the city has actually made the scenario work and credited organizations with implementing masks for staff members and customers.
Tampa, a city of 400,000, has had more than 57,000 covid-19 cases, according to state information.
Castor in 2015 stated she would choose to see the bars closed to protect individuals from sending the COVID-19 infection. It didn’t occur.
Collecting in bars creates a “veritable petri dish for infection,” she stated. Her thinking: Individuals remain in close quarters, not able to physically distance, and talk over one another loudly while consuming alcohol, which even more impairs efforts to suppress infections.
During the summertime, she unsuccessfully lobbied the commissioners of Hillsborough County to use federal covid relief money to pay bars to stay closed. The county controlled the CARES Act financing that originated from the federal government.
Then Castor’s efforts to shut bars were stopped after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in September took that power away from city governments, in addition to their ability to impose mask mandates versus consumers.
Florida purchased all bars and breweries to close from March to September, except for 3 weeks in June. DeSantis reopened bars in September however just to 50?pacity. Within weeks of his actions, the everyday variety of brand-new infections throughout Florida doubled and after that tripled.
Castor, a Democrat who switched from the Republican politician Celebration in 2015, stated the guv needs to have left decisions on the pandemic to city and county leaders. She said she’s discovered other methods to combat the spread of the infection.
She used social media, together with the help of health workers and expert athletes, to send the message to citizens that they ought to wear masks and stay physically distanced from others.
” We are doing very carefully OK,” Castor stated in a current interview.
Given that the pandemic caused limitations on individuals gathering, the city has actually canceled or rescheduled numerous occasions. This consists of the annual pirate-themed Gasparilla parade and festival, which usually attracts numerous countless people; it’s been moved from January to mid-April.
Castor is confident city residents will act properly.
” While I know covid tiredness, if we can keep this up for another couple of months, we will see the effect of the vaccine and come out from under this and conserve a great deal of lives while doing so.”
She is positive that the Super Bowl can go on, despite concerns about the spread of covid. “This is our chance to put our finest foot forward on the world phase,” she informed press reporters, assuring that the Buccaneers “will be the first string in NFL history to raise the Lombardi trophy in our own backyard.”
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