Friday Fest helped make Downtown Greeley a hip place with fun, live dance music, a new Go Cup system and hundreds, or sometimes thousands, of fellow revelers.
Business owners hope to make some noise β a little bit more β by closing 8th and 9th streets and putting tables out. They also added an open container law that essentially extends the Go Cup law full-time until fall, only with loosened restrictions: Any alcohol is OK now, even if you have some from home, though the idea is to support the businesses on the blocks.
The Greeley City Council approved the plan and began it July 1. But you do want it to be a resource for the bars and restaurants. Greeley City Council approved the plan after much discussion between business owners, city officials and residents.
Photo by Kelly Ragan. The resource includes tables spaced farther than the recommended six feet apart, a place for families and friends to gather and eat take-out from restaurants or drink coffee or libations and offer a safe alternative to eating indoors. Downtown owners paid for the tables and the trash barrels and hand washing stations and sanitation to keep them going. It also makes Fisher wonder how far to go to encourage patrons.
Should they bring fire spinners who used to perform at Friday Fest? A bubble machine? Maybe some additional lighting? Would that attract too many people and make social distancing impossible? Operating any kind of indoor business is dangerous, and no one knows that more than Matt Estrin, owner of Tower 56 Distilling. His wife also had it. The illness closed Tower 56 and quarantined his employees for two weeks. The employee attended a staff meeting the day before, so essentially everyone was exposed.
