Downtown Tulsa Businesses Preparing For COVID-Safe St. Patrick’s Day Celebrations

Several bars in downtown Tulsa are getting ready for St. Patrick’s Day celebrations Wednesday. There are three St. Patrick's Day events happening downtown, and they're all taking place in the same area.

COVID-19 put a stop to large St. Patrick’s Day celebrations a year ago, but as McNellie’s COO Jim O’Connor puts it, they’re dipping their toes into getting back to normal.

"We think it's time to kind of celebrate the fact that we made it the whole year and that we survived, but we're not going to go crazy either, because the pandemic is still going on," O’Connor said.

McNellie's will host their socially-distanced celebration mostly outside on 1st street, which gives people plenty of space to spread out. The area will be fenced in with controlled entry points to keep tabs on crowd size.

"We want to make sure customers and our staff feel comfortable, so that's going to be important to us. It's not going to be a free for all," said O’Connor.

McNellie's, along with nearby bars Arnie's and Reds who are also hosting events, submitted a COVID-19 safety plan that's been approved by the Tulsa Health Department. City of Tulsa Special Events Coordinator Skipper Bain said the requirements are extensive.

"Everything you might see at the CDC guidelines, they have to check off, it's a three-page checklist that the Tulsa Health Department looks at," said Bain.

The city also wants to know anticipated crowd size, but bar owners say that’s a coin toss.

"We're going to expect at least a few hundred people," said O’Connor.

In total, the three bars told the city crowds could be as high as 7,000 people dispersed across the three events. O'Connor says the most important thing to know before coming out is that if it gets too crowded, they'll limit how many people can come in.

The city says you can visit their traffic flow website to check on road closures associated with the events.