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By Curtis Galbraith
City Hall

Mayor to advocate for regional approach to re-opening in letter to province

Feb 11, 2021 | 6:00 AM

Grande Prairie City Council is hoping to get more information from the province on re-opening plans.

At Monday’s meeting, Council voted in favour of having Mayor Jackie Clayton write a letter to the province advocating for a regional approach to re-opening.

Clayton says council is hoping to gather more information.

“We thought that the original layout was a good first step and this is sort of the next step for that. What additional information could we find out, whether it’s working with other sports or potentially getting necessary people back to work, what the parameters around getting people back to work mean.”

This would be the second letter about re-opening from Grande Prairie City Hall to the Alberta legislature.

“The initial letter laid out some information that we were looking for and asking for parameters and expectations of what businesses needed to open. The province announced that plan. With this next letter, it will be to take that to the next step,” says Clayton.

She adds not all businesses in a particular sector can be lumped together.

“When you lump these businesses together, sometimes the blanket sort of regulation isn’t suitable for everybody. Although the province has laid out their four-phase plan (and) it was high-level in nature, there potentially could be more drilled-down, specific regulations that would be valuable to businesses.”

The idea to write this letter came after the owners of Trapped, a local escape room centre, spoke at the last council meeting. The owners say right now, they are lumped in with other businesses that won’t be allowed to open until Step 4 even though only one household is allowed in a room, rooms are cleaned between uses, the front door is kept locked, and there is only one staff member who keeps two metres away from users. They add the business may not survive if they have to wait that long.

by Curtis Galbraith