A popular ice cream joint in Winnipeg has closed after backlash over its impromptu drive-thru line.
Winnipeg’s Bridge Drive-In opened up Friday and asked people to stay in their cars instead of lining up outside of their ice cream shop to limit the spread of COVID-19.
After receiving backlash over the lineup of cars in the neighbourhood, the popular dessert stand near Fort Rouge decided to close on Sunday.
In a Facebook post the ice cream shop apologized to people in the community who were impacted by the traffic from their customers.
“We tried to deal with this as best we could in the drive thru scenario anticipating that we would be able to improve efficiency as time went on. Like we said in previous statements this was just an idea and we intended to adjust if needed.”
On Saturday some people on social media were frustrated by the long lines of cars waiting for their treat.
Some on Twitter questioned why the City of Winnipeg wasn’t getting involved and why the owners of BDI didn’t ask people to socially distance outside instead of in their cars.
Justin Jacob, co-owner of BDI, told Global News on opening day that they were doing the best they could but if the traffic became too big of a concern they would consider shutting down.
“It means a lot to us to be able to open because from a period of time there it seemed as though we wouldn’t be able to come up with a situation that would work,” he said.
“We put a lot of careful planning into this and we’re excited to be able to do it. If traffic starts to become a concern, we have to revise or talk to the city, or shut down even, if we can’t manage the traffic situation here, but we’re at least giving it a shot and we’re going to see where it goes.”
The City of Winnipeg says they are working with BDI to find “service delivery models that allow them to operate without posing any significant impacts to the local community,” but that they didn’t make any requests of the business this weekend.
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