With door set to open for some non-essential retail, many businesses are frustrated at being left out,
Province’s revised guidelines allow some non-essential shops to open at 25 per cent capacity
As he listened to Premier Doug Ford unveil details of plans to open up Ontario’s economy Monday, Alex Kucharski didn’t hear much good news.
For the owner of F45 Jefferson fitness studio in Richmond Hill, it was just the latest in a nearly yearlong series of disappointments.
“The constant stress of ‘am I going to be able to keep my doors open’ gets exhausting,” said Kucharski, who’s also co-founder of the Ontario Independent Fitness Studio Association.
“Today, we are seeing some sunlight,” the premier said as he announced plans to gradually open the door to limited non-essential retail over the next few weeks.
Gym owners had hoped they’d also get some reason for optimism. Instead, the fitness industry didn’t get mentioned at all.
“There really wasn’t much there for us. I mean, I guess it’s good that they’re looking at opening things back up a bit generally,” said Kucharski.
Ford announced that under the province’s revised guidelines, even regions in a “grey” lockdown area would be allowed to open up non-essential retail, albeit with limited, 25 per cent capacity.
The province also announced the stayat-home order imposed Jan. 10 would be extended until Feb. 22 for Toronto,
Peel and York.
That could push more business owners in those regions to reopen anyway, said Vladislav Sobolev, organizer of an anti-lockdown protest called “We are all essential” scheduled to take place across the country Thursday.
“We’re encouraging businesses to just open completely, and now, I think more will be tempted to do it. They should be
opening up at 100 per cent,” said Sobolev, who’s also an organizer of the antimask group Hugs Over Masks.
Sobolev says at least 400 businesses across the country have vowed to take part in the protest Thursday, no matter what the state of COVID-related lockdowns are in their region.
Ryan Mallough, Ontario regional director for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said customers could just end up going to regions which aren’t locked down as tightly.
“The last time this happened, I was speaking to a hairdresser in Halton who said ‘my entire clientele today came from Mississauga,’ ” said Mallough.
Toronto’s medical officer of health, Dr. Eileen de Villa, said pinning down a precise timeline for when the city should reopen isn’t easy, especially because of the growing number of COVID cases caused by variant strains of the virus, including those discovered in the U.K., Brazil and South Africa.
“The decision to reopen does not come with guarantees except that cases of COVID will rise,” de Villa said. “Rising cases are an inevitable consequence of more mixing.”
The biggest business boost Monday came to non-essential retailers, who had thus far been restricted to curbside pickup or delivery during the current stay at home orders; they had also faced the same restrictions if they’d been in a “grey” lockdown region.
Eventually being allowed to open up, albeit at 25 per cent capacity, will mean the difference between surviving the pandemic recession or not for some retailers, said Karl Littler, senior vice-president of public affairs for the Retail Council of Canada.
Littler says it’s something business groups have been lobbying the provincial government for since November. It’s also, he added, something that makes more sense than allowing people to shop at a handful of big-box stores.
“Opening things up in a more diffuse area, rather than packing people into a handful of places, just makes more sense logically, and is supported by the science,” said Littler.
The CFIB’s Mallough agreed, but added it’s too little, too late for many retailers.
“This is February. It’s one of the deadest times of the year, so it’s not going to make a big difference for most people,” Mallough said.