R.I. bars adapting to a New Year’s Eve like no other

Bars, which usually see a crush of people on the holiday, will be much emptier and are adapting as best they can.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) – New Year’s Eve will undoubtedly be different for everyone this year. But bars especially, which usually see a crush of people on the holiday, will be much emptier and are adapting as best they can.

Owner of Nolan’s Corner Pub in Providence, Brendan McCaughey, says they’d normally host a crowd of people.

“It would be packed, people crowded in, people kissing at midnight,” said McCaughey.

Owner at Muldowney’s Pub in Providence, Michael Greig, described a similar atmosphere.

“It would probably start getting busy around 10 o’clock, right around when we’re going to have to close this year,” said Greig.

Under current state guidance, bars and restaurants will close by 10 P.M.

It’s something they’re planning to embrace at Muldowney’s Pub. Instead they’ll be celebrating the New Year each hour starting in the afternoon, ringing in 2021 with whatever part of the globe will be celebrating at the time.

“We’ll all be seated, and doing our social distancing and all that, but we’re going to try to make the most of it all day, and all night, until we have to close,” said Greig.

At Nolan’s Corner Pub they’re taking a different approach. They’ve been closed since November and they are not planning to open for New Year’s Eve.

“Right now the way it is, bars have to close at 10 o’clock anyway,” said McCaughey. “So it’s sort of pointless.”

McCaughey says he doesn’t feel comfortable opening with Covid numbers the way they are, especially after Governor Raimondo advised not seating customers with those outside their household when she originally put the state on pause in November.

“And that just seemed like an impossible thing to police and it didn’t seem safe to just ignore that rule,” said McCaughey.

As for how they’re feeling about things getting better in 2021, Greig says he’s extremely optimistic.

“We got through this, we can get through anything.”