The latest provincial COVID-19 lockdown is not much of a change for Belleville’s downtown businesses.
The two major changes are to restaurants and preparations for the summer patio scene.
Downtown Belleville’s Executive Director Marijo Cuerrier tells Quinte News the restaurants are accustomed now to pivoting to “no indoor dining.”
With the new rules it’s back to takeout only.
Cuerrier added, “And for retail stores, it didn’t really change that much because our stores are large.”
“The trick is trying to keep the business owners motivated and also trying to keep our visitors feeling safe and also continuing to support the downtown owners as best they can.”
She pointed out, “The business owners down here. The locations that we have are much easier to keep sanitized and adhere to the rules than larger facilities would be. So, they’re not really doing anything different than they were doing last week except, really, about the patios.
“We had some patios that were starting to creep out. We had to take them in and of course the indoor dining. But really nothing else has changed much.”
Cuerrier added, “Patio season starts May 1. We’ve got some good constructed patios this year. A little bit more serious. A lot of the business owners are getting that done, getting approvals to make sure they can get their patios built.”
