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By Caden Fanshaw

LAST CALL

Local restaurants worry about long-term effects of early NYE booze ban

Dec 31, 2020 | 4:27 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – It’s not the order businesses are frustrated about most, it’s the timing of it.

“I was definitely frustrated when I heard the news,” says Fallen Moreland, owner of the White Goose Bistro downtown Prince George.

Moreland worries that the confidence in the safety of the hospitality industry has been put into question with a sudden health order banning the sale of alcohol past 8 pm on New Year’s Eve.

BC Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry made the health order public giving businesses just over 24 hours notice to try and re-jig reservations made after the cut-off.

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That’s exactly what Betulla Burning was forced to do, shuffling reservations the best they could to make sure their customers had the opportunity to get a drink.

“I feel like we’re the ones left paying the price,” says Eoin Foley, owner of Nancy O’s, Betulla Burning, and Birch and Boar. “I don’t know if this new order will achieve what they hope it does, those who are still going to break the rules are still going to do it.”

CEO of the Prince George Chamber of Commerce wonders what information health officials aren’t sharing that could make an environment like a restaurant unsafe.

“We’ve been told for months and months that restaurants are a safe space if you’re there with your family or those within your bubble. To adjust that again at the eleventh hour that signals that there is information that the PHO and the government have that they seem unwilling to relay out to the public,” says Corrigall.

Local businesses hope that you can still support local even given the new restrictions and order take-out if you don’t feel comfortable dining out.