Alberta announced it is easing health restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic for some businesses starting Monday, including for salons and other personal and wellness services, but other businesses were left disappointed.
Kieth Carlson owns Roy’s Place in Claresholm, and said he had hoped to hear limited dine-in service included in Thursday’s added activities. Instead, the update from the province left him and his peers feeling slighted.
“It kind of boggles most of the folks in our industry,” Carlson said. “I know our restaurant chat group here today is quite active at their disappointment with Mr. (Health Minister Tyler) Shandro.”
The health minister’s only reference to restaurants during Thursday’s update came while answering a question from the media.
“They’ve told us loud and clear that especially for you to open and close, for a restaurant, there’s a lot of inventory that has to be purchased, there’s a lot of notice that needs to be done,” Shandro said.
“A lot of restaurants, in particular, have identified for us a concern that they don’t want the yo-yoing of opening and closing, opening and closing.”
Shandro added the province is committed to providing adequate notice for businesses if and when more restrictions are lifted, but said those decisions will only be made if numbers continue to trend down.
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Thursday’s update from the province came shortly after the Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce sent a letter to the premier, sounding the alarm on a troubling trend.
“We wanted our letter to reflect our region more, so that’s why we really focused on our unemployment rate, because we were doing really well, and now we are the worst in the province,” said chamber CEO Cyndi Vos.
Vos added that those unemployment numbers do not reflect the time since the province increased restrictions for businesses in December.
She said many chambers across the province were writing similar letters to the province over the last week, pleading for businesses’ sakes and for clearer information on when reopenings could happen.
The province also announced on Thursday that it was expanding eligibility for its relaunch grant for small businesses, which now includes those that opened during the pandemic.
New businesses that began operations between March 1 and Oct. 31, 2020 — and that have experienced a revenue reduction of at least 30 per cent — could receive up to $20,000 in available funding.
Vos said that while every little bit helps during a tough time, there’s still some gaps in the system.
“People that are looking for rent subsidies and stuff like that, that has not worked out as well,” she said. “There’s a lot of small- (to) medium-sized businesses who are not finding that these resources are particularly helpful.”
Applications for those newly eligible businesses open on Feb. 4, 2021.
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