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We all remember the day we heard about the samosa ban. The news rocked all of our worlds; we had been robbed of our beloved, cheap campus snack. But the ban was not the first of bad news on campus in the Fall of 2019. Reflecting on this particular semester the last to be unaffected by COVID-19 I realize now that the samosas were one of three terrible omens of what was to come just a few short months later.
Let’s rewind a bit. The first event that indicated the coming doom was the closure of the Arts Lounge and the subsequent decline of Bar des Arts (BdA) as a central social location on campus. I remember when I heard this news in the summer of 2019. After having just finished my first year at McGill, an experience that was defined in large part by being a BdA staff member, the thought of not spending my Thursday evenings in the basement of Leacock serving beers was difficult for me to wrap my head around. I chose to remain optimistic, but this hope later proved to be naive.