COVID vaccine: Some LA County bars requiring proof of vaccination before entry

LOS ANGELES -- Want to get a drink at your local watering hole? At some bars in Los Angeles County, proving you're 21 or older won't be enough -- you'll also have to prove that you're vaccinated against COVID-19.

On Tuesday night, bar-hoppers at Little Joy near Dodger stadium said they approve of bars demanding vaccination proof for entry.

"I'm not going to tell them how to live their life, but if they don't want to get vaccinated then they don't have to come here," said one patron, a Los Angeles resident who identified himself only as Mike S. "They don't have to come to these bars that require that. It's their business, they can do whatever they want, and if they want to hang out they should get vaccinated."

Little Joy is just one of many bars in L.A. County that now requires vaccine proof. More bars in the county published posts on Instagram declaring the new requirement, and many patrons who spoke to our sister station KABC-TV agree with the policy.

"With the Delta variant going around, I think it's probably for the better that -- especially people young like us who are going out are vaccinated to, you know, prevent the spread and hopefully prevent the further adaptations of this virus," said Jack Bergon.

The more contagious Delta variant of Covid-19 now makes up 83% of sequenced samples in the United States, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Tuesday.

Highly contagious Delta variant now makes up 83% of US COVID cases, CDC says

Cities like London have made the move to mandate that all bar patrons must show vaccine proof to enter. For now, individual businesses in L.A. county are making a similar move.

"In our demographic, a lot of people in their early-to-mid-20s, late-20s, early-30s, that have gone out, they have taken the risk and they're taking the risk upon themselves," said Weston Massett. "And if they choose not to get vaccinated, that's totally their own decision but it's also -- they're putting themselves at risk, they're putting others at risk."

Some bargoers say that while they respect the decision of those to not vaccinate, that those people should then not try to mix among the vaccinated.

"I'm all for it," said a customer who identified himself as Jeremy S. "I think, yeah, as he said earlier, everyone's got their right to do whatever. They don't want to get vaccinated, they probably shouldn't be coming out because they're more likely to spread the disease than people who are."

Health experts have said the Delta variant is more transmissible than any other identified variant so far. "We should think about the Delta variant as the 2020 version of Covid-19 on steroids," Andy Slavitt, a former senior adviser to Joe Biden's Covid Response Team, told CNN last week.

CNNWire contributed to this report.