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McGuinness’s taps into spirit of St. Paddy’s Day

Even a muggy St. Patrick’s day couldn’t keep Sunnyside regulars out of McGuinness’s Saloon.

Local bar-goers enjoy a pint

At the corner of Queens Boulevard and 45th place sits McGuiness’s – a tiny hole-in-the-wall Irish joint. The place was well decorated for the festivities. Green Christmas lights were strewn across the premises, corned beef was served at the typically drinks-only bar and bountiful irish accents drowned out the traditional music playing in the background. The men’s room is to the left of the bar, as a sign clearly denotes, “Men to the left ‘cos women are always RIGHT.”

When you walk into the bar, the first chair is typically occupied by Séan Gorham. For the 25 years McGuinness’s has been open, he has been sitting in that same seat.

When asked why this was his favorite bar Gorman simply said “because it was across the street” before giving his serious answer. It’s because Marie McGuinness makes everybody feel comfortable.

McGuinness immigrated to this country from Donegal in 1987 and moved out to Queens with her husband Brandon McGuinness in 1990. They had worked in the service and bar industry priorly and had always wanted to open a place of their own together. Brandon passed away in 1996, just under a year before the bar that is his namesake opened.

Marie McGuiness wearing green for St. Patrick’s Day

While that bar has its fair share of clientele from Ireland, Marie McGuiness described her customers as “the league of nations” and speculated that even though it was St Patricks Day, the bar had about 20 people from different countries in there.

“I want customers to feel that this is their home away from home – no matter what country in the world they’re from. We have the best bartenders in the world. I want every customer to feel welcomed. If I go into a bar, whether it’s in any country, I would want to feel as welcome as people would make feel here. I always say a woman should be able to walk into any bar alone, set up at the bar, and chat to the bartender about sports or whatever,” McGuinness said.

And the approach has worked.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Marie struggled to keep the bar afloat. The restrictions placed financial stress on her business but as soon as the options for outdoor dining opened, her crew of regulars sat outside every weekend, even in the snow and crummy weather, in order to help support their favorite bar.

Joe Mennicucci has been regular with his with Kim Hirsch for as long as they can remember. He agrees with McGuiness about the bartenders being the best in the world. Before there were cell phones, he used to pay the bartender five to ten bucks every time the bartender would tell Mennicucci’s wife that every time she called that he wasn’t at the bar.

“It’s been open 25 years since February 13,” McGuinness said. “Hopefully, it will be open another 25 years, I’ll be walking around with my cane.”

City’s New Top Doctor gives COVID briefing

Dr. Ashwin Vasan has taken over as the city’s top doctor at the two-year mark of the ongoing pandemic.

Officially taking the reins from Dr. Dave Chokshi on March 16, Vasan held his first briefing last week in Queens alongside President and CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals, Dr. Mitchell Katz and Director of NYC Test and Trace Corps, Dr. Ted Long.

“Although it’s only my first week on the job, I understand how important regular communication is with all of you,” Vasan said to the press. “While the losses of the last two years have been profound, we’ve also developed tools in that period that are saving lives, including testing, prevention and new treatments, like antiviral pills.”

“It’s an honor to be the city’s doctor. Something you’ll hear me talk a lot about is the emotional toll that this pandemic has taken on all of us. We have all been through so much over these past two years and continuing uncertainty about the future of COVID can certainly add to the strain on New Yorkers mental health and well being,” Vasan said.

As of March 21, the city’s seven-day and 28-day average positivity rates are trending in the right direction with 1.66 percent and 1.89 percent rates, respectively.

Although he said New York City is currently in a “low-risk environment”, Vasan said he and his team at the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is monitoring the presence of the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron.

Dr. Celia Quinn said that ‘about 30 percent’ of cases in the city can be attributed to the subvariant, and that while it appears to be more transmissible than other strains of Omicron, it does not appear to cause more severe illness.

“I think the important thing to remember and to emphasize for New Yorkers is that currently, there’s no evidence that BA.2 causes more severe illness, increases risk of hospitalization, or that our current vaccines offer less protection against it,” Vasan said.

With just 55 percent of New Yorkers aged 65 or older who received their booster or additional dose, Vasan and his team stressed the importance of vaccines and reconnecting with health care providers.

As some mask mandates have been relaxed in city schools and other places, Vasan and Katz hesitated to say what it would take to lift a workplace vaccine mandate.

“People who have tried to predict what’s going to happen in the future for this pandemic have repeatedly found egg on their face, as they say, and I’m not going to do that here today,” he said.

Dr. Katz added, “Nobody has suggested that we should, you know, because polio levels are so low, we should say that schoolchildren shouldn’t be vaccinated for polio. I think vaccine mandates have a long and important history in public health.

“If you have childhood vaccinations, then everybody grows up to be vaccinated. So it turns out to be irrelevant, right? The point of childhood vaccinations is by doing it at childhood, you’re giving the person maximum benefit. And then they grow up as a whole cohort of people who are fully vaccinated.”

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