Saskatoon drinking establishment closes doors temporarily to slow spread of COVID-19

Joe Jackson said closing his business was a difficult decision to make.

The general manager of Pink, a former Saskatoon nightclub that has been operating as a bar due to COVID-19 restrictions, has decided to shut his doors for the month of December and wait to see if cases in the city decrease.

"It's time to be proactive and just keep her shut for the month of December and just wait for these numbers to either die down a little bit or just to flatten the curve," he said.

"We can recover our financial losses, but we can't recover our grandmothers and brothers and sisters."

New cases of COVID-19 continue to come in across the city. As of Tuesday afternoon, the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) said there were 1440 active cases of COVID-19 in Saskatoon.

Jackson said the move to temporarily shut down operations was not only an attempt to slow the spread of the virus, but was also a financial decision.

He estimates his business is down 40 per cent from normal, and said new rules for bars and restaurants are partially to blame.

Last month, the provincial government announced that bars must stop serving alcohol by 10 p.m. CST and must be closed by 11 p.m. CST.

"It was getting harder and harder to run a bar in in this pandemic with all the restrictions," said Jackson.

"It's a bit like telling a burger joint to only sell ketchup. So it was just a lot easier for us just to close the bar down and do our part. "

The nightclub restrictions were put in place after several of high-profile COVID-19 outbreaks in Saskatoon. Forty-eight cases were linked to the Longbranch Bar outbreak, 22 cases were linked to Divas nightclub, 11 cases were linked to the Canadian Brewhouse in Stonebridge and eight cases were linked to Outlaws Country Rock Bar.

Pink has laid off all of its staff as a result of the closure.

"That absolutely broke my heart," he said. 

"We're kind of like our own little family here. And so having to lay them off absolutely gutted me."

Jackson isn't sure when the bar will reopen. He said the business will wait until either restrictions are lifted by the provincial government or cases start levelling out.

Ultimately, he believes a full lockdown of the province in October may have been enough to stop the virus's spread.

"I think they they missed their opportunity to close down the province for a shorter period of time," he said.

"I think at this point, a lockdown would have to be two, three months long for it to be as successful as the first lockdown."

Economic recovery

According to the Saskatoon Regional Economic Development Authority (SREDA), Saskatoon's economy is 48.2 per cent recovered when compared to pre-COVID levels.

On Wednesday, SREDA launched a new economic tool, the Saskatoon Economic Recovery Tracker, which takes a look at 10 key economic indicators and compares current numbers to before the pandemic.

The tool found active businesses had only recovered by 22.4 per cent, while airport traffic was down to just 18.7 per cent.

"We don't know how long it is going to take, but we do know, at some point, the Saskatoon Region economy will recover to pre-COVID-19 levels," said SREDA CEO Alex Fallon.

The recovery tracker uses data from Statistics Canada, the Conference Board of Canada, the International Monetary Fund and industry associations to make its prediction.