Londoners spent the day Wednesday getting better acquainted with the province’s new COVID-19 vaccination certificate system, which took effect at midnight.
The system requires Ontario residents to present a paper or digital receipt of full COVID-19 vaccination along with government ID in order to access a variety of non-essential venues in the province, such as dine-in restaurants, nightclubs, gyms, sports facilities and theatres.
“So far, it’s been pretty easy. A lot of people seem to be aware, but those that aren’t are pretty understanding and go, ‘oh, I didn’t know it was now,’ or ‘I didn’t know I needed to bring it,'” said Bob Usher, general manager of the Covent Garden Market.
Customers looking to visit the market don’t need to show their vaccine receipt to come through the front door, but they are required to show it if they want to sit down and consume food or drinks, he said.
“Our food courts are cut off a bit, and we do have security checking the validation of your documentation,” Usher said, adding that the transition has been “a little bit difficult at times” as people get used to the new procedure.
“What we’re asking our tenants to do is to … inform the consumer, when they come in, if they’re buying food and they’re hoping to sit down and consume it here,” he said. “If you’re going to do that, you have to have the documentation. Failure to do so creates a problem with the province, and they’re going to be fining people.”
“Don’t shoot the messenger. We’re just implementing the law that we’ve been given.”
Premier Doug Ford said Wednesday that the certificate system was a temporary measure, and urged residents to not take out their frustrations on businesses and staff members.
“It’s important that each of us remain patient, especially with business owners and front-line workers implementing the vaccine certificate,” Ford said. “They’ve gone through so much during this pandemic, and deserve our support.”
Earlier this month, a spokesperson with the Ministry of the Solicitor General told Global News that members of the public and business owners “should not hesitate to call 9-1-1 if they need the support of police, including in cases where they are being threatened.”
The health unit says more public health inspectors will be out in the field this week to help and support businesses enforce the new measures.
Usher said a few of the market’s vendors had already reported being subjected to foul language from patrons upset with the requirement.
The certificate system doesn’t apply to staff at the impacted venues, nor does it apply to those under age 12, those with medical exemptions, or to essential services such as grocery stores. Indoor masking policies remain in place.
Usher said the market had received several phone calls asking whether staff of the market’s vendors had all been vaccinated. “The answer is ‘no, we don’t know.’ I have no legal right to … because we’re not the employer. We are the facilitator of the property that rents the space to an independent tenant.”
“The question that the consumer is starting to ask is ‘I can come in and I can buy it from someone who’s not vaccinated, but then if I want to eat it, I got to go and sit in a food court where you’ve actually checked me out?'” he said.
The new vaccination certificate system has received public support from the London Chamber of Commerce, the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
Fines are possible for businesses that don’t comply with the checks required by the system, and for patrons who give false information. But businesses, bylaw officers, police forces and the province say enforcement will be gentle at first.
“I was very impressed by coming to the market and seeing the security people had been set up properly. They were very kind and understanding and clear about the instructions,” said patron Julie Lee, who was sharing a coffee with a companion in the market’s food court area.
“Every measure that can be taken to have people take the vaccine … the need to have a vaccine – seriously should be taken, so I’m in support of this, no question about it.”
“I actually forgot that we needed the vaccine passport,” said fellow diner Qasim Kareemi. “When I came in here, I pulled it up online and was able to log in. Little bit of delays here and there, but … honestly it worked, so I’m happy.”
The start of the vaccine certificate system hit a snag Wednesday morning when the province’s portal allowing residents to access their receipts was down temporarily for maintenance followed by an error and then a wait time.
Some trying to access their receipts Wednesday morning were met with a notice that said “sorry something went wrong. We are working on it.”
Covent Garden Market patron Aiden McDonald was among those who ran into some tech issues when he went to download his receipt before sitting down.
“It was about like ten minutes because it wasn’t loading, so I wasted a bit of my time,” he said. “After I loaded it, I took screenshots just so I can just show it right away, so that was more effective.”
Another patron chose to sit outside rather than fumble with the provincial portal.
“I am double vaccinated, but I just don’t have it out and it was taking too long,” said Nicole Truong. “You have to put your health number in and everything, so I was like, ‘I’ll do that at home.'”
The province says it’s looking to have a digital QR code and verification app in place for businesses by Oct. 22 to streamline the process.
“It’s been pretty smooth. It’s slowed down our check-in process, but we had preset everything, so it was fairly streamlined,” said Alec Pinchin, owner of Fitness Forum, late Wednesday morning.
“Where our normal check-in is one or two seconds, now it’s less than 30 seconds. We put an extra person onto reception, and things went well,” he said.
“It has been probably our busiest morning here in quite a while.”
With the first day of the certificate system underway, Pinchin said the facility had already seen a few people arriving unprepared by late morning, however most left and came back later with their vaccine receipt.
“I don’t know if they were caught off guard or if they were just trying to see how diligent we were going to be.”
Global News first spoke with Pinchin shortly after the certificate system was unveiled. At the time, he said he was supportive of the move, noting that while the system may alienate some clients, it may bring in others who had been hesitant to attend the facility during the pandemic.
“There are people that are good members of ours that are not going to get the vaccine. We’ve given them a couple of options, one we hope they don’t take, which is to cancel a membership. But that’s a very small percentage of our clientele here,” he said Wednesday.
Pinchin said he remains concerned about the issue of authenticating the vaccine certificates clients present to him. “We’re certainly not trained on that.”
He also remains perturbed as to why gyms and restaurants need to request proof from customers, whereas other sectors, don’t.
Among those not impacted by the certificate system are hair salons.
“(The province) said it was because, as they did some data checking this time, it showed that transmission risk was not as high in salons and barbershops compared to other settings because of our strong infection control practises,” said Jean Coles, owner of three local Sports Clips, in an interview with 980 CFPL early Wednesday.
“Customers will assume that they have to show their vaccine passport, so we’re anticipating that clients will come in and kind of pull out their information. We’ll accept it, but we don’t require it. It’s great that people are vaccinated, but it’s not a requirement at this time for us.”
Coles said she believed the vaccination certificate system was an important step for the province to take to encourage people to get the COVID-19 vaccine, and noted that it comes alongside other measures available to small businesses, such as rapid testing for staff.
“With increased testing, vaccinations, we should be able to battle this thing, and it may not go away, but at least we’ve got better tools in our arsenal.”
Some business groups have called for Ontario to lift capacity limits – as venues such as gyms, yoga studios, bowling alleys and concert halls remain capped at 50 per cent capacity – now that all customers have to be vaccinated.
When asked Wednesday, Ford was non-committal, but said he will work with the chief medical officer on “having a few more people go into restaurants, other locations.”
James Rilett, Restaurants Canada’s vice-president for Central Canada, said restaurants are “as prepared as they can be” but are expecting “some loss of business” and confrontations with some patrons.
Ryan Mallough, senior director of Ontario affairs at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said businesses have a “decent understanding” of what’s required but there’s “some stress and anxiety around what happens in a moment that doesn’t go smoothly.”
Ontario reported 463 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday and seven more deaths linked to the virus.
Locally, London-Middlesex reported 29 new cases.
–With files from The Canadian Press
Comments