Restaurant association CEO questions why retail stores can open at full capacity

The head of Manitoba's restaurant association is questioning why his beleaguered industry is about to get hit with another round of COVID-19 restrictions while people are still allowed to crowd into big box stores and malls in most parts of the province. 

Capacity limits for restaurants and licensed venues drop to 50 per cent on Tuesday under the new restrictions announced at the end of last week, aimed at curbing the spread of the Omicron variant.

The restrictions will be in place until at least Jan. 11. 

That's going to be devastating for these businesses during one of their busiest times of the year, said Shaun Jeffrey, CEO of the Manitoba Restaurants and Food Services Association. Usually, restaurants use the revenue from the holiday season to get them through January and February, which are notoriously slow, he said. 

He said he spoke with one business owner over the weekend who said he had hundreds of cancellations in a single day. 

"This is going to be a hard time. You know, it's very hard to tell your staff a week before Christmas that we're going to have to let you go for a couple of weeks, or three weeks minimum, because we can't just can't afford to have you here," he said. 

"That's a pretty big pill to swallow for our industry at this point, no doubt."

Cam Loeppky, co-owner of the Good Will Social Club in Winnipeg, said he understands the need to enact restrictions but wishes the province had provided some indication prior to Friday.

The bar and live music venue was expecting booming business over the next couple of weeks with six sold-out shows between now and Jan. 11.

"On Thursday, we were doing shopping for the bar and we [thought] we better double our order on everything because it's going to be at full capacity six times in the next 14 days, it's gonna be great," Loeppky said.

He said the cost of that stock of liquor was about $12,000.

As of Monday, due to the restrictions, every one of those shows has now been cancelled.

Take 'proactive, aggressive approach": Jeffrey

Jeffrey said he understands the need for restrictions, but doesn't understand why his industry continues to be targeted first while retail isn't, pointing out that other provinces like Ontario have put capacity limits on stores too. 

"They're closing down everything or using it as a circuit breaker to really protect their population. And for some reason, we're leaving businesses that are busy right now open and shut the ones down that aren't," he said. 

He said he'd rather have tight restrictions across the board. 

"Let's take a real, you know, real proactive, aggressive approach of taking care of this now, not later, because we cannot be closed for six, 12, 14, 16 weeks like it's been in the past," he said. 

"That just cannot happen. We cannot survive another closure like that."

CBC News has reached out to the province for comment.