While the region is currently in the Grey-Lockdown zone of COVID-19 protocols, added restrictions for shopping malls, retail stores, and food and drink premises in Niagara were announced, effective Feb. 22.
- Shopping and retail
- Food and drink premises, including bars, restaurants, banquet halls, wineries or breweries and establishments where only beverages are served
Failure to comply with these orders is an offence for which you may be liable, on conviction, to a fine of not more than $5,000 for every day or part of each day on which the offence occurs or continues, states a Region press release.
The press release states the added measures are need because, “Ontario, including Niagara, find ourselves at a precarious point in this pandemic. Our average cases remain near the highest point of the first wave. We saw through the fall that despite the measures in the province’s framework for keeping Ontario safe and open, COVID-19 continued to rise, though slowly, but eventually leading to the provincial shutdown earlier this winter.”
“We see variants of COVID-19 increasingly spreading in the GTA; other countries that have reopened such as the UK, Ireland and the Netherlands have found that these variants caused a third wave and required a third lockdown soon after the second lockdown.”
There was no data supplied to support the decision, but a request has been issued to the Region’s health department.