The New Normal -Part 2: Enforcing The Mask Mandate On Lower Broadway

By Nate Rau, Tennessee Lookout

July 22, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has altered virtually every aspect of life and created a new normal for Nashville residents.

To capture the ways life has changed, award-winning photographer John Partipilo spent several weeks in the community and the result is an eight-part series of photos.

Some of the most vocal pushback to the Metro Department of Health’s new mandate requiring masks in public places has come from the honky tonk owners on lower Broadway.

In the first days of enforcing the mask mandate, Nashville police officers passed out flyers and reminded visitors of the requirement. A large digital sign alerted lower Broadway patrons to the mandate.

When officers asked a homeless man to wear a mask, he obliged by ripping fabric off his shirt and tying it around his head as a makeshift mask.

The officers’ presence and the flyers seemed to work. Officers handed out nearly 500 warnings and most people wore masks to be in compliance.

However, a few days later on July 18, throngs of people hit lower Broadway and very few were wearing masks.

Click here to see the photo gallery for this story.

Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit network of state government news sites supported by grants and a coalition of donors.