Padre Island and Port Aransas are tourist hot spots for spring break vacations, but will they be hot spots for the spread of viruses this spring break season? With the recent measles outbreak in West Texas, Neighborhood News Reporter Erin Holly wanted to find out if employees at island businesses were taking extra precautions to help stop the spread of germs during this high-volume time.
"We always try to be proactive rather than reactive. That means scheduling extra staff, from security guys to bartenders, keeping everyone current with their TABC and their food handlers, really making sure, after a certain time, that we have no minors in the building, no underage drinking, monitoring everybody's safety and well-being is the number one priority," Joanna Torboli, a bartender and office manager at The Pelican Lounge said.
Staff at The Pelican Lounge believes the customer's safety is their main priority—which means keeping a close eye on the spread of potential viruses, such as measles, this spring break season.
"We will be looking into taking more precautions. I know certain people are vaxxed for that, some people aren't. We'll just have to try to take the proper measures and safeguards to make sure that that doesn't keep spreading and being a problem for us," Torboli said. "Obviously we sanitize everything, all the time, we're here hours cleaning in the evening after the bar closes. We always have tons of antibacterial hand soap, sanitizers available, and we just go from there."
Along with continuing its standard cleaning efforts, The Pelican Lounge is also adding extra staff for spring break season and making sure customers have a sober ride home from the establishment.
"We'll call someone for somebody that they would like us to call, or finding them a ride with somebody safe that they or we know, anything we can do to accommodate someone, we will try to always do that," Torboli said.
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