Restaurant owner fined twice for breaking distancing orders critical of enforcement

The owner of a Winnipeg restaurant who has been fined twice in a month by the province for failing to enforce physical distancing says he has been trying to meet what he says are confusing demands from inspectors.

On Saturday, Chaise Corydon was fined just over $2,500 by an inspector from the Liquor, Gaming and Cannabis Authority of Manitoba because some patrons were dancing and not physically distancing the previous night, according to the ticket.

"We were baffled, to say the least, about what it meant and what we were supposed to do differently," said Shea Ritchie, one of the owners of the Corydon Village restaurant, explaining that he made calls on the weekend to different inspectors to see if they could interpret the ticket.

"Nobody was able to answer any questions or give me any details about what we were doing wrong or what rules we broke ... we wanted to make sure that we made whatever changes we had to for Saturday night."

Ritchie said he eventually had a conversation with the inspector who issued the ticket, who said he saw some people going to the bar to order drinks and a few others dancing.

The restaurateur said the inspector believed the groups at the bar and dancing weren't consorting with people outside their groups. Ritchie also claims the inspector didn't know the restaurant is allowed to take walk-up orders at the bar and that he couldn't find the rule the restaurant had broken relating to the dancing.

"There's a hodgepodge of different rules to follow and the inspectors aren't following the posted rules themselves," Ritchie said.

CBC News reached out to the LGCA Monday afternoon, but a spokesperson didn't immediately return a request for comment.

Ritchie claims he didn't know Chaise Corydon staff are supposed to stop people from dancing.

"If if I'd known we were following rules in this situation, I would have been able to plan and co-ordinate with my security team and my management. But these are all new rules to me. I didn't know this was such a thing," he said.

"If they were willing to give me a warning, I would be very happy to work with them and take part in this."

At a press conference on Monday, Manitoba's chief public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin said business owners, like the owner of Chaise Corydon, need to work within public health guidelines.

"We're not back to normal. When we're enforcing the Public Health Act, there's often plenty of opportunities to fix things, plenty of warnings. But we're going to protect Manitobans. Right now, crowded indoor enclosed spaces are a risk for transmission of this virus," he said.

"Business owners they need to work within the guidelines. They can ask for advice on how they might do this, but just like all sorts of policies they enforce, this is another one they're going to need to."

A spokesperson from the province says about 140 warnings have been issued by police agencies, public health inspectors, LGCA inspectors, conservation officers and others enforcing the public health orders.

On June 22, the restaurant was fined $2,542 related to physical distancing on the patio, a provincial spokesperson said in an email last month. It was fined as a "followup to earlier warnings," the email said.

These two fines, coupled with the fact that Chaise Corydon was closed for more than two months during the pandemic, is putting his business at risk, Ritchie says.

"It's absolutely devastating ... If I can make extra money in the summer, I can pay my rent in the winter."