ROANOKE, VA. – With the state cutting off alcohol sales at 10 p.m. and closing restaurants by midnight, a night of partying on New Year’s Eve just isn’t possible. At Martin’s in downtown Roanoke, owner Jason Martin said it’s just another Thursday. “With having to close at 10, there’s no champagne toast, there’s no band ringing in the new year, there’s no Times Square on the TVs. JD Sutphin owns Big Lick Entertainment and hosts the annual Big Lick Countdown. The event brings people in from as far as Pennsylvania and Ohio, all spending money in the area.

ROANOKE, Va. – New COVID-19 restrictions are now in effect across Virginia, limiting what people can do as we head into the holidays. After starting to build back a little normalcy over the last couple of months, new restrictions are bringing new challenges for the hotel. “Now it’s really back to really quiet,” Wells said. “It’s going to cost us tens of thousands of dollars a week,” Martin said. “It’s been painful to do, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how much we try to enforce stuff to keep people distanced and safe, it doesn’t seem to matter,” Martin said.