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By Shane Clausing
covid restrictions

Local businesses happy to stay open even with the latest round of COVID-19 restrictions

Sep 9, 2021 | 1:13 PM

The Grande Prairie & District Chamber of Commerce is reacting to the latest set of COVID-19 restrictions implemented by the Alberta government.

On September 3, the Alberta government announced a mandatory mask mandate for all indoor businesses and forcing restaurants to stop serving alcohol after 10:00 p.m.

The new measures came in as new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations began to surge in the province over the previous weeks.

Board Chair Larry Gibson says while there were the new restrictions put in place, he’s happy businesses can mostly continue to operate as normal.

“We kind of expected something was coming with the case counts going the way they were. It was in some ways not surprising when they came out (with new rules) and it was in some ways a bit of relief,” he explained.

“Businesses don’t have to make those decisions on their own. It’s a province-wide announcement where they’re all going to have to follow the same rules.”

While he is pleased the new measures will allow businesses to remain open, he adds it is another blow to the restaurant industry, which has been crawling out of the pandemic.

“They were just starting to see the light there and getting back to somewhat normal and now it’s a bit of a setback for some of them,” said Gibson.

“I know in speaking to some of them they’re happy they’re still open, but that does cause a bit of an impact when you have to have your alcohol cut off at ten o’clock.”

Gibson mentioned he’s hopeful the latest restrictions can have an impact and slow the growth in COVID numbers.

“We’re happy to see the businesses are still open and we certainly want to do everything we can to promote good behavior to keep these case counts low and keep our business doors open. That’s really what we want to see, and we want to see everybody doing the right thing to do that.”

The Grande Prairie Chamber of Commerce says at this time they’re still doing research to see if vaccine passports should be recommended for local businesses. A decision on that has been made.

by Shane Clausing