Iris Virjee, an Independent running at-large for Athens City Council, is in it for the everyman. Virjee, a bartender at the West Sideâs Smiling Skull Saloon who grew up in Mount Sterling, Ohio, graduated from Ohio University with a degree in urban planning and a certificate in wealth and poverty in spring 2020, just as the pandemic hit. Amid the nationwide volatility of a health crisis that came to define the year, and a slew of personal hurdles, Virjee opted to forgo a professional career using her degree for what she described as the relative stability of work in a small town bar, despite health orders closing bars and restaurants for a time during that period.