Massachusetts

Boston Sports bars roll out new vaccine protocol in time to welcome Pat’s fans

BOSTON — As sports bars got ready to welcome Pats fans for the playoff game Saturday, managers also had to roll out a new protocol.

Restaurants started carding people, not just to see their age, but also to see if they’ve been vaccinated for COVID-19.

“We’re already asking people for ID’s, so it’s not a huge deal for the vax cards, pretty much everybody knows they’re supposed to have them,” said Jacob Gibson, manager at Bleacher Bar.

Most customers had no problem showing either their physical vaccine card or a digital version.

“I was asked to show my vaccination card, it was super simple, very easy, no real issue at all if you get it on your phone that’s the best way to do it,” said Michael Kane, who went to Game On to watch the Pats game.

“I downloaded it two days ago, very straight forward on the website through mass-vax, a couple of clicks and saved it right to my iPhone,” said Adam Calloway, who went to Bleacher Bar.

Bars near Fenway like Bleacher Bar and Game On put up new signs to warn customers at the door that the vaccine mandate just went into effect.

The managers there tell us they only had to turn away a couple of parties Saturday.

“We had a group of people from San Diego that came down here to do the tours in Fenway, and they came over to have a draft beer or something and a bite, and one person in their party did not have their vaccination card, so we were unable to serve them,” said Joanne Sena, manager at Game On.

0