Toronto mayor wants stricter restaurant rules
Premier told Stage 3 order needs tweaking
Toronto Mayor John Tory is pushing Ontario Premier Doug Ford to impose more rules on bars and restaurants — such as early closing times and additional occupancy limits — as part of the provincial government’s plans to reopen the economy of Canada’s most populous city.
Tory tweeted Sunday morning that he’d sent a letter to Ford requesting “additional measures” intended to help stem further spread of COVID-19, recommendations that come as Toronto is eyeing entry into the third and final stage of the province’s reopening process.
“While many of these measures are already Toronto Public Health guidelines and recommendations, they are not included in the province’s legal regulation,” Tory wrote in the letter, which was dated Saturday. “I believe ensuring these are requirements rather than recommendations will help ensure compliance and ultimately, protect the health of our residents.”
Under Stage 3, most businesses will be allowed to resume operations, including indoor service at bars and restaurants. Toronto is still in Stage 2 of the reopening framework, but Tory said in his letter to Ford that they were passing along their Stage 3 recommendations now.
“I believe it is easier to add them ahead of time so that businesses and residents can adopt them immediately, rather than having to add further down the road should outbreaks start to occur,” Tory wrote.
Tory’s six requested tweaks to the Stage 3 order, which would apply “at least” to Toronto, include that the rules around restaurants and bars should require customers to stay seated at all times — rather than just when they’re eating or drinking — unless they are entering, exiting, going to the washroom or paying the bill.
The second request on Tory’s list was that the Stage 3 order should require sitdown restaurants and bars to keep a log of people who come into the establishment. This would include a list of the names and contact information of at least one person from each dining party and the date they arrived.
Those logs would be kept for 30 days, and could then be destroyed. In the meantime, public-health officials would be allowed to use the information when trying to track down the people a customer with COVID-19 may have come into contact with.
Tory’s letter also asks that there should be further limits on the number of people in a bar or restaurant, “to ensure that physical distancing can be easily maintained by all patrons.”
Additionally, the mayor asked for early closing times for bars and restaurants, such as last calls set at around midnight, “at least an initial period of time, similar to what was done in Quebec.”
Lastly, Tory requested “clearly outlined” requirements for mandatory face coverings for staff and customers in an amended Stage 3 order, as well as for a requirement that bars and restaurants have protocols in place to screen staff for COVID-19.
Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott tweeted that she and Ford would keep working with the mayor and city officials in evaluating when it may be ready to move to Stage 3.
“Current guidelines include strict restrictions for indoor bar seating, including that all customers must be seated when eating or drinking at the establishment and patrons at different tables are separated by two metres or Plexiglas or some other similar barrier, among others,” Elliott added.
Toronto reported on Friday that there have been 15,037 cases of COVID-19 in the city, up 81 since Wednesday.
But it “takes only one case (perhaps asymptomatic) in a bar to infect many people, possibly equivalent to several times Toronto’s average daily total,” Tory wrote in his letter to Ford.
Furthermore, the request for additional restrictions for Toronto comes as big chunks of Ontario outside of the Greater Toronto Area have been cleared to enter Stage 3, which led the Ontario Medical Association on Friday to caution against reopening indoor bars.
“The evidence from other jurisdictions is that the reopening of bars carries significant risk,” OMA President Dr. Samantha Hill said in a press release. “When people consume alcohol, inhibitions are lowered, making them much less likely to practise physical distancing, proper masking behaviours and good hand hygiene. Indoor locations with decreased air ventilation present a particularly high risk of transmission.”
Mayor Tory’s menu of additional restrictions for Toronto’s restaurants and bars was also tweeted a day after the federal government said it would not grant the necessary approval that would allow the Toronto Blue Jays to play their regular-season baseball games in the city.