TORONTO – Ontario business owners worried about the future of their businesses as workers braced for layoffs after the province imposed new COVID-19 measures that forced some to temporarily close their doors and others to limit visitors. .
The latest public health measures announced by Ontario Prime Minister Doug Ford on Monday require restaurants and bars to stop eating indoors and stop selling alcohol after 10 p.m. starting Wednesday.
Retail establishments, including shopping malls and personal care services, must reduce their capacity to 50 percent, while indoor concert halls, theaters, cinemas, museums, galleries and other attractions must close.
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Policies aimed at reducing rising COVID-19 cases in the province are expected to remain in effect until at least January 26, but companies fear that even three weeks of closures will lead to lost revenue and layoffs and exacerbate the hand shortage. of existing work and increasing costs.
“I’m in the middle of nowhere right now. I’m really disappointed, ”said Andy Page, owner of Tomyum restaurant and wine bar in Toronto.
“Every day I open my eyes and see a lot of bills waiting for me to pay them and a lot of people ask me why I keep going. To be honest, it’s because I don’t have a backup plan. “
More weeks closed will mean that bills, already high from rising inflation rates, will rise further and Page will have to work harder to retain the staff he managed to hire in a tight job market.
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The Ontario government tried to ease some of those financial strains on Monday with an expanded rebate program for businesses affected by the new series of closures.
Certain businesses that were ordered to close will be reimbursed for 100 percent of property taxes and energy costs, he said, while those that require reducing capacity to 50 percent will be reimbursed for half of those. expenses.
Since Ford’s announcement was made, Page said his phone has been constantly ringing with messages from staff members concerned about their jobs and curious about his plan to keep the business alive during temporary closures.
Page will offer takeout and use UberEats for delivery, but admits neither of them makes enough money to replace the service of a full dining room.
You only keep takeout because it will help you retain customers and prevent your staff from looking for work elsewhere.
“I am already taking money from my RRSP to pay for my things, but I hope you can understand that I am not going to pay you as much as before,” he said.
Ryan Duncan, who works as a server at a Toronto restaurant, said he expects a layoff notice from his workplace this week.
“I have a lot of friends in the industry and we are all waiting to see when the other shoe falls,” he said.
“We don’t know exactly what’s going to happen, how long this layoff and shutdown could last, and where the financial support will come from.”
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Duncan was fired earlier at the start of the pandemic and used government aid payments to stay afloat, but said he incurred “quite a bit of debt” trying to keep food on the table and pay his bills.
With another layoff, he said he would take things “day to day,” but if he’s out of work for an extended period, he could be “forced” to leave the industry and possibly leave Toronto.
“There is no long-term planning available at the moment because there is simply no way of knowing what is going to happen next month,” Duncan added.
As Duncan watches to see if he will lose his job again, some employers were already acting on layoff plans.
Landmark Cinemas, Canada’s second-largest theater chain, said the new measures will have a “significant financial impact,” forcing it to once again lay off hundreds of part-time employees during its mandatory shutdown.
“We support the government’s goal of curbing the spread of this variant and sincerely hope that the closure will be limited to three weeks,” the theater operator said in an email.
The nation’s largest movie chain, Cineplex Inc., also expects the closure of 67 of its theaters to be as brief as possible.
Theaters have already faced several rounds of pandemic closures and have seen movie premieres moved by distributors to later in the hopes of attracting larger crowds.
After Ford closed theaters once again, Cineplex said it would offer full refunds to customers who had booked tickets in advance.
– With files from Noushin Ziafati and David Friend in Toronto
© 2022 The Canadian Press
Reference-globalnews.ca