Directive puts damper on celebrations
House parties will replace safer restaurant meals, F&B manager says
An already subdued New Year's Eve in Metro Vancouver should become even quieter with a last-minute order from Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry setting last call for liquor sales at 8 p.m., just for Dec. 31.
New Year's Eve bashes and public celebrations had already been cancelled, although many may have wanted to put a spike into 2020 with some sort of party to close it out.
Restaurants and pubs, however, were still scrambling to hold on to some semblance of New Year's Eve celebration by accepting reservations for special dinners intended to end short of officially ringing in midnight. Henry's order adds one more last-minute hurdle for their efforts, said club manager Don Falconer.
“It's going to be a huge dagger to the heart of the hospitality industry that's already been struggling for the past eight months,” said Falconer, general manager for food and beverage at the Hotel Belmont on Granville Street in downtown Vancouver.
Falconer said with reservations for 60 people as of Wednesday, New Year's Eve was setting up to be Hotel Belmont's busiest night since reopening at limited capacity after Henry's temporary lockdown at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now, he hopes they don't lose too many of those reservations from disappointed clients who will look to make other plans, even spur-ofthe-moment house parties.
“I understand where Dr. Henry and (Health Minister Adrian) Dix are coming from and I understand we're lucky in B.C. that we still have indoor dining at all,” Falconer said. “(But) it feels like they're kicking us while we're down,” expressing disappointment in the timing of the order more than anything.
Henry, during the sudden press briefing, said the order is a measure that her office has been considering “for some time,” and was made after discussion with her team.
“Given what we were hearing and seeing about what was planned for tomorrow night, and what we saw over the past weekend, it was prudent for us to take some action,” Henry said.
She added the order was timed to give restaurants a chance for two seatings “to provide a meal service, a safe meal service. So we hope it's not going to impact those restaurants who are doing a really great job and keeping people safe.”
Henry said the intent is to dial back the opportunities for latenight consumption of alcohol, which health officials know has led to riskier behaviour that can lead to increased virus transmission.
Falconer, however, suspects people will be cancelling reservations en masse “and you're going to see people going to house parties,” instead of restaurants, where owners have invested in Plexiglas barriers and operate under Work-Safe-mandated COVID-19 safety plans.
Ian Tostenson, CEO of the B.C. Restaurant and Food Service Association, said his organization received the order “about a minute” before Henry's media conference, which left him “profoundly disappointed.”
Restaurants have likely spent “hundreds of thousands of dollars” on special menus, champagne and other mementoes, and “we'll probably see restaurants lose, you know, 25 to 50 per cent of (their) potential sales.”
The 8 p.m. timing of last call makes second seatings more difficult to accommodate, Tostenson said, but if Henry had consulted with the industry ahead of time, they could have reached a middle ground of perhaps 9 p.m.
Tostenson was already expecting a “very, very understated (and) lowkey” New Year's Eve, without any scheduled parties or celebrations due to Henry's last order Nov. 8 that restricted social interactions to people's own households.
Sales in the sector plummeted after that order, Tostenson said, but establishments are holding out hope for an increase in takeout business for the evening.
The order will put an additional crimp in business for Seasons in the Park, which has a three-course New Year's dinner planned and has taken reservations from couples mostly, but some family households as well.
“It won't be celebratory in any way, shape or form,” said Seasons in the Park general manager Richard Baker of the New Year's Eve dinner planned at his restaurant.