2020 has provided its fair share of challenges, and while Nashville may typically be a popular tourist spot, Paramore‘s Hayley Williams is hoping you’ll save that trip until travel is safe again.
In a series of Instagram Stories posts, Williams delivered a plea to her social media followers, requesting that they not come to her Tennessee home base as Covid-19 cases continue to spike in the city.
“Please don’t come to Nashville. Plan your bachelorette party somewhere else this time,” the singer stated in one of the videos. “The numbers are skyrocketing pretty much everywhere; Nashville is no different. Our people are dying, our local businesses are suffering — so many businesses that make our town special and made it enticing in the first place. Tourists, people from out of town, are coming in and crawling up and down Broadway taking shots to terrible music. I just don’t understand what the governor or the mayor are doing.”
Nashville’s mayor John Cooper has enacted public health orders to attempt to stop the mass congregations in the Lower Broadway district, first shutting down bars and then limiting restaurant hours, having them shut down at 10PM.
In addition to her video pleas, Williams offered video of a press conference held by Nashville’s small bar owners in which they revealed that their businesses are in danger of closing for good if the health regulations cannot be enforced. In a Nashville News 4 report, Fox Bar owner Andrew Cook stated, “We wish that Mayor Cooper would enforce the rules that he put in place and punish businesses that are not enforcing the mandates because it’s killing small businesses like ourselves. We are paying the price of the negligence of the bigger bars operating on loopholes.”
Meanwhile, city council Emily Benedict suggested that visitors to Nashville were causing the spike in cases, adding that it might be a good idea to enact a 14-day quarantine period for out-of-town visitors. “You can’t come to Nashville and spread the crisis is what that says,” stated Benedict.
Williams concluded her thoughts on Nashville’s current Covid spike, stating, “If you really believe in Nashville, don’t come here until this shit is handled.”
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