Ocean City Bar Debuts "Bumper Tables" To Keep Customers Socially Distant
Whether you approve of it or not, beach towns are getting ready to open for the season, COVID-19 be damned. I live in Baltimore, where during the summer months a noticeable portion of the population decamps for for Ocean City, Maryland every single weekend, and this year is shaping up to be no different. Though it's essentially impossible to get drunk people to remember how to social distance, one of the resort town's popular bars, Fish Tales Bar and Grill, has introduced a possible solution to protect millions of Marylanders from accidental infection: "bumper tables."
The tables—which are essentially giant inner tubes strapped to walkers—were invented by Revolution Event Design and Production, whose founder and CEO, Erin Cermak, is a cousin of Fish Tales owner Donna Harman.
"When COVID hit, our phones weren't ringing off the hook, so we were trying to envision what events were going to look like ... and figure out how people were going to be social and socially distant at the same time," said Cermak to local news outlet WBALTV.com. Revolution is custom building this revolutionary invention at its production facility in Baltimore, and Cermak says that since Fish Tales showcased its ten bumper tables on social media, demand for the product has skyrocketed.
Fish Tales co-owner Shawn Harman told WBAL-TV that the restaurant plans to order more tables, which he described as an "adult version of a toddler walker." Considering how heavy drinking in the hot sun has a way of turning people into gigantic toddlers, maybe this could be a trend that sticks around long after the coronavirus pandemic subsides.