Orange County, NC – On Saturday night, hundreds of University of North Carolina students and fans at Chapel Hill flooded Franklin Street after the basketball team defeated Duke University. It is a famous UNC Chapel Hill tradition for students to celebrate a victory against rival Duke.
“I haven’t seen that many people for so long. It was absolutely wild,” said Hannah Willcox, the CEO of Sup Dogs.
Willcox said she expected it to happen even during the coronavirus pandemic.
Freshmen, sophomores … they’ll want to rush Franklin Street. They will want to party like they’ve seen so many people do before, ”she said.
On Sunday, UNC-Chapel Hill leaders said in a letter that they had received hundreds of complaints about student behavior related to the Franklin Street celebration.
“Those leads will be evaluated, and students who violate our COVID-19 Community Standards will be subject to developmental or disciplinary action,” school leaders said in a statement.
The city of Chapel Hill and Orange County have spent months trying to keep coronavirus numbers low.
“We meet all the time to talk about how we can do this together and how we can keep people safe, and we still want our companies to survive the pandemic, and you can only do that by adopting safe practices because people need to feel safe to go to the company and [the] business must have safe practices, ”said Chapel Hill Mayor Pam Hemminger.
“It was so shocking,” Hemminger added. “We worked so hard together. We messaged together. We worked together …[we] had students sign a pledge. ”
Hemminger said that while some people might say they understand why students and fans were celebrating, it wasn’t okay during the pandemic.
“It’s not okay to let our guard down at this point. We are so close to the light at the end of the tunnel. The numbers are just starting to drop after the holidays. We must remain vigilant. We see the light. We just have to keep following that path to it. Events like this just put us back. ”
“We have to sacrifice these experiences to get through the pandemic,” Willcox said. “It’s just a little frustrating for companies that stick to the rules and do the best [they can] to make sure Chapel Hill was safe. ‘
Sunday was the last day for students to return to campus for the spring semester. School leaders said that despite complaints about the incident, in-person undergraduate classes will continue Monday as planned. However, the faculty may remain at a distance with instruction on Mondays and learn personally on 17 February.
