Mask bylaw may be extended to apartment common areas
Council unanimously backs plan to require face coverings in shared spaces
St. Catharines residents living in apartment or condo buildings may soon be required to mask up when they get in the elevator, go to the laundry room or check their mailbox.
City councillors are planning to expand the city’s mandatory mask bylaw to include common areas of apartment buildings, condos, hotels and motels.
“I received several phone calls and emails from people, many of them senior citizens, who live in apartment buildings who are very concerned that the mask bylaw doesn’t apply to their buildings, especially the elevators and laundry rooms where they’re sometimes in a confined space without proper ventilation around other people,” said St. Patrick’s Coun. Karrie Porter, who made the motion to expand the bylaw Mon
day night.
“A lot of these folks, they have to get out and do things like their laundry, they don’t have anyone else to do it for them.”
Councillors voted unanimously to
back the bylaw amendment, but it will have to wait for final approval until a public meeting is held, scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 13.
St. Catharines council adopted a mandatory mask bylaw that went into effect on July 17 and requires people to wear face coverings in indoor public spaces. Apartment buildings were not considered to be “public” indoor spaces because they are usually only accessible to the people who live there, not the general public.
A Niagara-wide mandatory mask bylaw adopted by regional council went into effect on July 31 and a provincewide law was announced last Friday, but council heard those laws don’t address the common areas either.
City solicitor Heather Salter said most bylaws and orders have excluded common areas of residential buildings on the basis they are dwellings and there was some concern about jurisdiction to regulate the areas.
But other municipalities have gone ahead and extended their bylaws to include common areas of apartment buildings and condominiums, including Toronto, Hamilton, Burlington, Mississauga and Ottawa.
“I think this is part of us doing everything possible to make sure that we’re responding to the pandemic in an agile way, and having to change the bylaw if we need to make sure we’re addressing all the risks,” Porter said.
Her motion asked that the bylaw be amended to include common areas of rental accommodations, including apartment buildings, condominiums, hotels, motels and other short-term and longterm accommodations. Those areas include lobbies, elevators, meeting rooms, rest rooms, laundry rooms, gyms, kitchens and other common use facilities.
A special public meeting to address the issue will be held Tuesday, Oct. 13. It will start at 5:30 p.m. and can be viewed on the city’s Youtube channel.