Image Credit: CFJC Today / Kent Simmonds

By Jill Sperling

Circuit Breaker Ended

Indoor dining, faith gatherings to resume as B.C.’s circuit breaker comes to an end

May 25, 2021 | 4:47 PM

KAMLOOPS — B.C.’s circuit breaker restriction have ended and the province is laying out a roadmap to reopening.

“This is indeed a good day, and one that I’ve been waiting for for a long time, as I’m sure many people in British Columbia have too,” said Provincial Health Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry.

Step one of the B.C.’s restart begins today (May 25). Among activities now permitted is indoor dining.

Fox’n Hounds Pub opened in the morning.

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“It’s fantastic, I only wish we had more notice,” said owner Al Deacon. “We are a little ill-prepared. We didn’t order Thursday of last week to get an order today, so we’re running to the grocery store to get supplies, but we’re open and we’re excited about it.”

Deacon says it will take a while to get back to normal operations.

“We lost a whole bunch of staff,” he explained. “People in the industry were just kind of feeling volatile and had to find jobs where they could guaranteed they were going to pay the rent. We lost five fulltime employees and we’re still looking to replace them, so we opened up this morning with seven tables inside and we still have our outside seating as per yesterday and previous weeks.”

The province is permitting groups of six to sit at a table inside a restaurant. People can also have five people — or a household — over for a social gathering inside their home. Additionally, indoor faith-based gatherings may once again be held.

“Really excited to be able to see people again,” said Chris Throness, lead pastor at Kamloops Alliance Church. “The church is a social group, we’re a community of people. So the idea, even to read this restart plan, looking ahead is just so exciting to come together again.”

Public Health will be consulting with faith leaders to bring back indoor worship services at a limited capacity and more specific details are expected to come out in the coming days. Throness says he hopes to provide a mix of online and in-person services into the future.

“There’s a lot of flexibility that we have, we want to do like a hybrid-type model, still being online because we know it’s going to be a primary way of engagement for the next little while, through the summer probably,” he said. “But obviously having an in-person thing is really important to us as well.”

For now, non-essential travel is still restricted by region and outdoor gatherings remain limited to 10 people.