‘There was nobody inside’
Councillor’s road trip offers reopening lessons for local restaurants
Coun. Stephen Wright had to talk his way through provincial border checkpoints on a factfinding road-trip to New Brunswick last weekend.
Wright said he wanted to see for himself whether early restaurant reopenings in that province are reinvigorating an economy that’s been halted for months in the COVID-19 pandemic.
It wasn’t easy: Wright said he had the “new-world” experience of explaining to an RCMP officer, on his way into New Brunswick from Quebec, that he would remain strictly in his car while visiting.
He was willing to stay in his car for an entire weekend, he said, because nothing beats firsthand observation.
“If you want to see what reopening looks like, you go to where it’s been done already,” he said Friday.
Canadians have the right to travel freely across provincial borders, Wright added, so he couldn’t see why he should be turned away if he was willing to stay isolated in his car the whole trip.
Wright told the RCMP officer he would be in New Brunswick for three days and not get out of his vehicle, not even to sleep (he pulled over for naps and carried on).
He ate takeout from drivethrough windows and got out of his car only at gas stations, where he paid at the pump using credit.
In New Brunswick he drove through restaurant districts in cities and towns at the dinner hour, he said, and past coffee shops in the morning. What he observed was one empty restaurant after another.
“Even Tim Hortons — there was nobody in it,” he said. “Drive-thru lineups were long, but there was nobody inside …
People are scared.”
That doesn’t augur well for the survival of many restaurants in Peterborough, he said.
He’s also concerned people are becoming too afraid of one another to ever go out — even when social distancing is possible.
Wright is part of Peterborough’s Economic Recovery Task Force, which is considering a plan to close parts of Hunter and George streets downtown to create patio zones once the province sees fit to enter the second phase of its COVID-19 reopening.
He said earlier this week the group is working on the wording for a recommendation that could go to a council committee within two weeks.
For restaurants with small dining rooms — and that includes most downtown restaurants, Wright said — it would allow for physical distancing as well as a new al fresco dining experience.
“We can create the largest outdoor patio in the city,” he said. “This can be done.”