Normally, Victoria Bazan would be busy, serving the afternoon rush of diners at her west Toronto seafood restaurant and fish shop, Honest Weight.
Instead, her indoor dining room sits empty and Bazan is bagging takeout.
With COVID-19 case numbers climbing and the Omicron variant spreading quickly, Bazan says she isn’t taking any chances and is closing indoor dining —limiting service to takeout and retail only.
“It was important for me to ensure that our staff would be able to spend the holidays with their families,” Bazan told Global News. “Because right now, if anyone tests positive, they’ll have to self-isolate which means they wouldn’t be able to spend time with their families over the holidays.”
Her restaurant isn’t the only one in Toronto taking proactive measures against the highly-transmissible variant. French restaurant Greta Solomon’s also announced they’re pausing indoor dining in an Instagram post, saying it was “not the way they were anticipating their lead-up to the holidays.”
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“I think in their DNA now, it’s hard-wired that they have to be ready to shut down at anytime. That’s an unfortunate way to run a business,” said James Rilett, vice-president of Central Canada of Restaurants Canada.
Right now, Rilett says, it’s up to restaurants to do whatever they feel is necessary to stay safe. However, he says it would help if the province provided guidance on how his members should safely navigate these waters, now that Omicron is becoming dominant.
“We’ve asked the chief medical officer of health … to be a part of that conversation, to talk to us, to share his data with us,” Rilett says. “If there’s things we need to change, we want to help, but unfortunately those conversations aren’t being had.”
Global News reached out to the ministry of health for comment on if and when new guidance could come down for restaurants, but did not hear back before broadcast deadline.
“I can mobilize and implement measures far more quickly than any government can,” said Bazan, who isn’t waiting for the government to act — though she stands to lose much by parking her chairs now, during the busy holiday season.
“I had to spend two hours calling our reservations for the next few weeks and cancelling with apologies,” Bazan told Global News.
For her, though, she says the decision is about more than that. It’s about protecting the ones she loves and their loved ones.
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