Never underestimate the power of delicious chicken wings, customer loyalty and economic ingenuity. Throughout the course of 2020, these unassuming antidotes helped the city of Rifle not necessarily avoid the economic influenza of COVID-19, but they certainly made things a bit easier for general retail, food services and bars and restaurants to sustain decent sales. Just two weeks after Gov. Jared Polis and the state of Colorado announced Garfield County’s drop to a less-restrictive level yellow COVID-19 dial metric, city leaders agreed it’s a step in the right direction. But looking at year-to-date sales tax collections, city coffers have seen slight dips despite the COVID-19 level.