EDMONTON REOPENS — CAUTIOUSLY
If you had a hankering for a pint on the Victoria Day long weekend, Edmonton was the place to grab a drink at a pub or a meal at a restaurant — assuming you were willing to do some legwork.
The province is among the first in Canada to begin reopening the economy, the first phase having kicked off on May 14, allowing for retailers and restaurants to reopen, including in-person dining and drinking so long as social distancing and capacity rules were followed.
On Sunday — with temperatures climbing above 20C — Edmontonians could be seen hanging out, two metres apart, on the patio of MKT, a beer hall located in an old Canadian Pacific Railway station, just off of Edmonton’s Whyte Avenue.
“The decision to open up was really just because that’s the business that we’re in, and we feel that we can and we feel that we can do it safely,” said Wayne Sheridan, owner and founder of Situation Brewing.
Elsewhere in the Whyte Avenue area — a main drag in Old Strathcona — with the sun fighting its way through the clouds, things were atypically quiet, though not too quiet. There were people here and there, out for food and drinks or a stroll.
But there was none of the regular crush of foot traffic, vehicles, and loud cars and motorcycles you’d expect on a sunny long weekend. There were the new accoutrements of the new normal, though, with hand sanitizers at bar entrances and signs asking people to not enter shops and stores if they weren’t feeling well. Many businesses were open only for curbside pickup and by appointment.
A pair of old friends were in Blues on Whyte, drinking bottled beer and catching up. The pool tables — and most of the tables — were empty.
The group sat at either end of what in normal times would have been a table for six. Lonny Angelski, sharing a table with Tom Irwin, used to be regulars and said it was nice to see folks at the pub. “We want to support the business,” said Angelski.
On the patio nearby, at Malt & Mortar, Michael Elliott and Alyssa Ritchie were having a drink, citing the weather as a good enough reason to get out and enjoy.
They were doing “fantastic,” Elliott said, and neither was especially stressed about the COVID-19 pandemic. They sat across the table from each other but well apart from the other patrons.
“Economically concerned, not medically concerned,” quipped Elliott.
Elsewhere, diners said they had sanitized their hands, but nobody was sipping through their masks or lifting them aside to take a bite of food. Staff at multiple venues, though, were wearing masks and gloves.
Alberta relaxed rules for outdoor gatherings in time for the long weekend, with 50 people allowed to gather. Indoor groups remain capped at 15. Other provinces, such as Ontario and British Columbia, are expected to follow suit this week, gradually opening their own economies. In Quebec, which has the greatest number of COVID-19 infections, Premier Francois Legault said Monday that the situation in the greater Montreal area has stabilized enough to allow retail stores to open on May 25 as planned and daycares on June 1, with a limited number of spaces.
While Edmonton might have been the place to be in Alberta on the weekend, that’s partially because the reopening is staggered. Bars and restaurants and hairdressers are open in Edmonton, but in Brooks and Calgary, they remained closed. Both cities are on a separate reopening timeline because they have the bulk of Alberta’s COVID-19 cases.
Riley Aitken, the owner of Smokey Bear, a restaurant in Old Strathcona, said the restaurant had only been
WE’VE GOT TO DO IT CAUTIOUSLY AND LEARN A FEW THINGS ... IT IS DIFFERENT.
open for a few months when the pandemic shut his doors. The eatery serves seasonal food, cooked over open flames, along with drinks, and had a busy weekend, he said.
“At some point, for us, I think you’ve got to get back to some sense of normalcy,” Aitken said. “You fall off the bike, at some point you have to get on or you’re never going to learn how to ride.”
He said they’re operating at just shy of 40 per cent capacity, and a slightly shorter menu.
“We’ve got to do it cautiously and learn a few things,” Aitken said. “It is different — it’s different for the diners and it’s different for the restaurateurs.”
Even so, in Edmonton, many restaurants and bars opted not to open. Across the street from Smokey Bear, the Next Act pub — a mainstay of the drinks and brunch crowd — remained closed for dine-in service, as did some of the other brunch hotspots in town.