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Winnipeg’s Osborne Village businesses experience major changes amid COVID-19

Click to play video: 'Osborne Village in midst of major overhaul'
Osborne Village in midst of major overhaul
Several businesses in Winnipeg's Osborne Village are on the way out, while a handful of new ones are rising up to take their places. Global's Malika Karim takes a look at how the village is handling such major changes – May 20, 2020

Winnipeg’s iconic Osborne Village neighbourhood has changed drastically since the COVID-19 lockdown began.

Typically a spot where you can grab bite, do some boutique shopping and dance the night away, it’s now more of a ghost town to foot traffic.

Restaurants can no longer host in-house dinners, bars and clubs are closed and shops have changed to online sales to help slow down the spread of the novel coronavirus.

“For March, it came to a grinding halt,” said owner of Silver Lotus, Judy Coy. “You take a couple of days to reestablish your needs and [what] moving forward looks like.
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“We have decided that we will keep our doors closed and we are going to focus more on the curbside delivery.”

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With the changes comes challenges. Business owners like Coy saying some helpful changes from the city would be appreciated.

“Moving forward, it would be nice to maybe see some temporary time for parking, like maybe five-minute parking.” Coy said.

“And I think that to keep it clean and to maybe have some more walk by police once in a while, that would be nice.”

Sherri Rollings, city councillor for the area, says there’s been an increase in the number of people wandering the village with shelters in the area having to lower their capacities.

“Normally you have eyes on the streets, [a] dynamic bar and restaurant district and all of a sudden it’s almost emptied, however there has been an increase of homelessness and that has been very difficult and a challenge in a pandemic,” Rollings said.
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Rollins says she’s been working on safety plans for the area and will be putting forward a motion for the addition of curbside pickup lanes to help businesses cope with the new reality of shopping in the Village.

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