Kayla Pingree-McCarthy: How many people have to die to support beach-side party?

To The Daily Sun,

Laconia Motorcycle Week should be cancelled this year.

I have nothing against Bike Week; it is such a fun event that my husband and I attend every year. It brings money into our small businesses and excitement to our summers! This year, though, it is a dangerous and unnecessary event. Local families will be forced to quarantine the whole week (and potentially far longer after) as all our stores and shops become potential hotbeds of transmission.

Our schools are opening less than a week later! All the students with summer jobs will be returning to school right as the cases of Covid begin to surge! How can we do this to our own children and neighbors?

Town and state officials do nothing to help the situation. They pass the responsibility onto local business owners to enforce any mask requirements instead of mandating them in public entirely. This leaves many youths and frontline workers responsible for asking customers to mask up; if they refuse, who is going to make them?

If Bike Week isn't cancelled for this year, our whole state is going to suffer. How many people have to die for this beach-side party?

Kayla Pingree-McCarthy

Laconia