Restaurants brace for a busy Thanksgiving weekend
CBC
Usually, Thanksgiving weekends are a slow time for restaurants. Many shut down on the holiday completely, giving staff a much-needed break.
But, this year, if families want to gather outside their single household bubbles, restaurants will be the only place they'll be permitted to go because of the new COVID-19 'circuit breaker' restrictions announced yesterday.
According to the provincial government, a single household includes individuals living together and can be extended to include: caregivers for any of those people; any parent, child, sibling, grandparent or grandchild of those people who requires support; and any one additional person who lives alone at another address who requires support.
Tabatha Smith, owner, manager and team leader at Isaac's Way, a family–style restaurant based in Fredericton, says she has already seen an increase in inquiries and reservations for Thanksgiving.
"With this move, we expect to be busier," said Smith. "[But] there's a sadness in knowing that some families aren't going to get together at home."
Despite the rapid change in holiday plans, Smith says the swift measures were necessary.
"I think that all of us expected some sort of safety measures [to be] put in place," said Smith, who says the restaurant has been operating with rapid testing since August. "Having watched the cases rise and the deaths that we've suffered in the last week… we're very happy to see some more safety measures move through."
The Rachel Notley government's consumer carbon tax wound up becoming a weapon the UCP wielded to drum the Alberta NDP out of office. But that levy-and-repayment program, and the wide-ranging "climate leadership plan" around it, also stood as the NDP's boldest, provincial-reputation-altering move in their single-term tenure.