Students set quiet tone for first weekend in Five Points as COVID concerns linger

Five Points just isn’t the same during a pandemic.

Even on what might normally be an active Thursday night, bars were mostly empty. Curbside food stands packed up at 10 p.m. No ride shares clogged Harden Street to ferry patrons to and from the entertainment district.

“I think things closing early” kept people home, said David Muehrcke, 19, a University of South Carolina student in Five Points Thursday night. Many of his friends weren’t headed to Five Points either, he said.

Still, many students wouldn’t be kept away from the popular bar district. And not all of them wore masks.

One of those was Logan Dutton, 21, who said she was not worried about getting coronavirus because, she said, a relative already had it, “so I think I already got it.”

The first full weekend after college students from USC, Benedict College, Allen University and others have moved back to Columbia could set the tone for a unique — indeed, unprecedented — semester, as the coronavirus pandemic clouds nearly every aspect of college and city life. City, state and university leaders have taken measures to try to lessen the likelihood of potentially dangerous crowds of young people, as COVID-19 infections continue to spread quickly and easily throughout the community.

On Thursday night, those measures appeared to have at least some effect in Five Points, normally the city’s hot spot for late-night revelry.

Davis Sharp, 27, who was enjoying a beer on the patio of CJ’s, posited it was the governor’s executive order halting alcohol service statewide at 11 p.m. that is putting a damper on Five Points.

While that may be good for coronavirus, it’s bad for business, said Joshua (better known as just Chef), the owner of a curbside food stand called Slutty Chicken.

“I understand why they’re doing it,” Chef said of the 11 p.m. rule. “But it affects how we feed our families.”

Chef said he is confident the reason students are largely refraining from Five Points is because of the 11 p.m. cutoff. In the months before the early shutdown, even during the summer when very few students were in town, he was still making decent money selling food late at night, he said.

“They want to go out at 11 and go back at 2:30,” Chef said.

When business is good and the crowds of bar patrons “look like New Orleans,” Slutty Chicken can get dozens of people waiting in line for a late-night snack.

But the light crowds in Five Points don’t mean students aren’t partying, Chef said. Slutty Chicken is positioned just in front of the College Mart convenience store, and Chef points to would-be bar patrons who are walking out of the store with alcohol. He thinks they’re headed to house parties.

“These...kids don’t care about coronavirus,” Chef said.

House parties could become the main concern for some permanent residents of the neighborhoods surrounding USC’s campus, where many students rent homes. With bars closing earlier, some have expressed worries that college crowds will simply migrate into neighborhoods.

“I try to calm people down and go, look, just because a lot of the kids are walking through our neighborhood, it’s not a real problem for you” in terms of coronavirus safety, said Kathryn Fenner, who lives in the University Hill neighborhood between campus and Five Points. “The conversations we’ve had with the neighbors have gone variably from ‘Oh my gosh, this is horrible!’ to ‘Eh, what are you going to do?’”

City leaders, who have already implemented a requirement for face masks to be worn in public places, gave initial approval on Tuesday to a rule designed to crack down on house parties at rental properties. But that measure will only be effective in neighborhoods like Fenner’s if residents make the effort to call in nuisances to the authorities, and if authorities are diligent about enforcement, Fenner noted.

The return of students is generally welcome, said April Lucas, one of Fenner’s University Hill neighbors. She said she is thankful for some of the policies that are aimed at keeping a peaceful environment in her neighborhood; if students follow the rules, she said, everything’s good.

“We’ve all been young, and you want to enjoy your friends. I mean, even older people want to enjoy friends,” Lucas said. “But it’s just with this day and age, you’ve got to balance social interaction with health and safety. ... As far as the students are concerned, we just hope that they’re smart and they use their heads and follow guidelines.”

USC began in-person classes on Thursday. On the eve of classes resuming, USC President Robert Caslen acknowledged there would be students who didn’t comply with social distancing and mask rules but expressed optimism that the majority of students would.

“We know the majority of (students) are going to comply and will be happy to comply,” Caslen said during a Wednesday town hall with reporters. “We also know there will be exceptions and we will hold those exceptions accountable.”

Even before classes began, images and videos began surfacing on social media showing people at USC student apartment complexes partying and gathering closely around a pool without wearing masks or socially distancing.

USC has been trying to avoid the fate of other schools, such as the University of North Carolina, which re-closed campus within a week of reopening. On Thursday, North Carolina State reverted to online-only classes for the rest of the semester, citing “rapidly increasing” COVID 19 cases, according to the News & Observer of Raleigh.

A scenario like that in Columbia is “absolutely” a concern, Mayor Steve Benjamin said.

“I was 20 years old once and invincible, too, so we all understand that,” Benjamin said.

Hearing of the overall quiet scene in Five Points on Thursday night, Benjamin said, “I hope it means that not only are people being responsible by staying home because the bars are shutting down early, I hope it also means that everyone is tapped into their sense of personal responsibility.

“We just want and need everyone to step up,” he said.

This story was originally published August 21, 2020 at 3:54 PM.