The BC Restaurant and Food Services Association say they are having talks with the provincial government on how to re-open restaurants while still abiding by the 50-person limit inside a public place.
The organization accelerated its plan that it believes would meet public safety, operations, and sanitation practices.
President and CEO, Ian Tostenson outlined the type of changes you might see if the plan gets approved.
“You might see faster turns in the restaurant instead of people going ahead and spending a couple of hours, you might see people in and out a little bit quicker and you’re probably going to see similar to grocery stores with a high visual cue that sanitation is priority number one.”
“I think we’ll make those adjustments, I will be interested to see what role patios play in all of this, is the rule 50 people inside and or 50 people outside, again, we don’t know these things but we’ll make some recommendations around that.”
He adds if their proposal gets the green light, restaurants in the north might have an easier time adapting compared to other parts of the province.
“It might be even easier because you know the north sort has a more local connection with its restaurants as they probably know their customers a bit better and I think they will be able to communicate a little bit easier but the challenges are the same.”
Tostenson admits the virus has had a crippling effect on the industry.
“It’s devastating, you have businesses that are operating with low margins essentially closing overnight unprepared with high rents to pay. Having to deal with all the 190-thousand people in our industry, we have probably 180-thousand that are unemployed.”
Tostenson also commended the work being done by both the provincial and federal governments, including the 75% wage subsidy that was introduced by Ottawa last month.
“They have been really in tune with us here in British Columbia and the government is doing a great job. The wage subsidy can be applied for starting on Monday, that’s been good but I think the biggest challenge we haven’t dealt with yet is around rent, that’s still the biggest issue.”
“We’re all on the same page here, we all want the same thing, we want public safety and we want the economy to get back working as quickly as possible but we have to do it in a safe manner.”
Tostenson admits once the regulations get relaxed or when a return to some form of normalcy occurs, it will take some time for consumer confidence to rise.
“It’s going to be a slow re-entry. People aren’t just going to come charging out and going to restaurants, I think there will be a certain reluctance that people are going to have and I think there is going to be a high responsibility to our industry to show them that the best practices we put in place to reopen are going to be very comforting to the public.”