Third Corydon Avenue eatery fined

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This article was published 20/07/2020 (1522 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Another restaurant on Corydon Avenue has been fined for not following social distancing rules, making it the third restaurant on the strip, and the 12th in Manitoba, to be punished.

The owners of Siraj Café & Hookah Lounge have been fined $2,542 for failing to comply with provincial public health restrictions. The business ticketed on Monday. To date, 10 restaurants have received the $2,542 charge, including Chaise Corydon and Arabesque Hookah Cafe and Restaurant, both of which are on Corydon Avenue. Another two restaurants have been fined $486 for not following the regulations.

Shea Ritchie, Chaise Corydon’s owner, said it’s hard to understand the rules. He was fined July 11 following an inspection by Liquor, Gaming & Cannabis Authority of Manitoba officials. It was his second fine for not following social distancing rules.

Ritchie said the reasoning for the ticket changed several times when he questioned officials. He received the ticket because patrons were allegedly dancing and not social distancing. Ritchie said he questioned the provincial health protection unit, and was given different answers than the LGCA.

The LGCA did not respond to an interview request Tuesday.

“There’s a lot of misinformation, and it’s coming from the top,” Ritchie said.

He’s on the Manitoba Restaurant & Foodservices Association’s board of directors, and he has a copy of the province’s public health restrictions. Even so, he said the regulations are confusing to restaurateurs. Rules are different based on who the health inspector is, he said.

“Your degree of certainty just goes down,” he said. “You’re always wondering, ‘Well, now we’re not supposed to do that.'”

Ritchie said people now associate his restaurant with rule-breakers. He said he’s received hate mail and nasty comments online. That image might extend to Corydon Avenue if restaurants keep getting ticketed, he said.

“How come all of a sudden, when they jack up the rates of the fines, we all decide to stop following the rules?” he said, adding that he hadn’t received a fine during the seven years before COVID-19 regulations.

Corydon Avenue is a busy place in summer, which may contribute to the concentration of fines in the area, Ritchie said.

Manitoba restaurants don’t need to limit occupancy, but they must ensure customers can maintain a two-metre distance or install barriers.

Shaun Jeffrey, the executive director of Manitoba Restaurant & Foodservices Association, said the provincial government should do more to educate people about maintaining social distancing while at restaurants.

“The onus is not just solely on the customer, and the onus is not just solely on the restaurant,” he said. “Everybody needs to work together to make sure these things are followed.”

The Corydon Avenue Business Improvement Zone can’t control how restaurants handle social distancing rules, said executive director Katia von Stackelberg.

However, city Coun. Sherri Rollins said she’ll ask business associations to track which restaurants get fined. Keeping the public safe and flattening the COVID-19 curve are priorities, she said.

gabrielle.piche@freepress.mb.ca