Lockdown rules need to be updated to level the playing field

It was wrong to let big-box stores open during the first pandemic lockdown last spring, and the unfairness of closing only smaller retailers again to stem the spread of COVID-19 in Ontario hot spots Toronto and Peel is even more glaring.

Foreign-owned giants Costco and Walmart should not be virtually the only bricks and mortar stores allowed to open in the month before Christmas, selling everything from TVs and telephones to clothing and shoes, just because they also sell food and have pharmacies.

Shuttered smaller retailers who invested money to make their stores as safe as possible for staff and customers are facing bankruptcy and fearing eviction while people spend their holiday dollars at the big box stores. The New Democrats say the exemptions were granted after Walmart hired two former Doug Ford staffers as lobbyists, who set up a meeting between the company’s CEO and the premier.

Small business owners deserve to see data showing their stores played a role in the “widespread community transmission” that necessitated the move to the “grey-lockdown zone” and shutting their doors. However, public health units are so behind in contract tracing there is no solid information on the spread of COVID-19, or the lack of it, in stores or barber shops and hair salons.

The Bay/Sax Fifth Avenue opening its six-storey department store in downtown Toronto because it has a small grocer in the basement was clearly ridiculous, but the government had changed the wording from the first lockdown to exempt “other retailers selling groceries” so they greedily gave it a try.

Green party Leader Mike Schreiner wants big-box retailers restricted to selling just food, and Ontario has experience regulating what stocked items stores can sell at specific times.

Until the early 1990s, it was illegal to shop for virtually anything in Ontario on a Sunday, except at a convenience store or pharmacy, so it was common, if bizarre, to see drug stores literally roping off some aisles with products that were deemed off limits to shoppers one day a week.

One fairer way to handle the pandemic retail restrictions is to bring back the ropes and force Costco and Walmart to sell only the grocery and pharmacy items that allow them to keep their 18,000-square-foot behemoths open. Tell Loblaws to rope off the aisles or departments full of Joe Fresh clothing.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses calls the pandemic rules unfair, and warns the second round of closures will mean a permanent shutdown for many retailers.

The premier agreed with the small business lobby — “A lot of these things are not fair” — but dismissed the idea of closing off certain aisles in big stores as “just not realistic” without saying why.

Why not try to make the most important shopping month of the year fair for all retailers? It’s been done before, when stores roped off aisles one day and opened them the next, and it can easily be done again, especially if the ropes stay up for 28 days at a time.

Better yet, unless the data show there is a real risk of transmission in small stores, and not in big ones, allow all retailers to open in the crucial holiday shopping period, with restrictions they’ve suggested such as a limit of three shoppers and three customer service staff at any time to maintain social distancing.

We don’t really need to bring back the ropes to block some aisles in stores, but we do need a fairer application of the lockdown rules, and clear data to support the decisions that can be so devastating to so many.