Restaurants in Oakville, Halton Region and throughout Ontario are about to suddenly have a lot more open tables.
The Ontario government announced today that regions in the Grey, Red and Orange levels of the province's COVID-19 framework will have higher capacity for indoor and outdoor dining at restaurants beginning tomorrow, Saturday, March 20.
The surprise announcement came in the late afternoon of Friday, March 19, 2021, announcing new rules and increased capacities would take effect less than seven hours later. The move follows a meeting by Premier Doug Ford and his cabinet to discuss the modifications.
"To support the province's economic recovery," said the province in a press release, "the government is cautiously adjusting dining capacity limits at restaurants, bars and other food and drink establishments, for regions in the Grey-Lockdown, Red-Control and Orange-Restrict levels of the Framework, effective Saturday, March 20, 2021 at 12:01 a.m."
For both the Town of Oakville and Halton Region, which has been in the Red-Control level since February 16, maximum capacity for restaurants and bars indoors has been 10 people. Under the new rules, however, the new capacity is up to 50% of the building's capacity or 50 people total, whichever is smaller.
Areas in the Grey-Lockdown level couldn't allow any diners before, but now outdoor dining only is permitted, subject to physical distancing rules. Restaurants and bars in the Orange-Restrict level are going from a maximum of 50 patrons to 100 patrons or 50% capacity, whichever is less.
These change means restaurants and bars will be able to serve people from the same household outdoors in Grey areas, like Toronto and Peel, which have seen in-person dining closed for over four months now.
Local businesses in Oakville, meanwhile, could see up to 40 more dine-in patrons at a time, a 400% increase. (Oakville News' Kim Arnott first reported on local restaurants wanting fairer rules exactly one month ago today.)
Ontario's new rules come as officials are trying to balance the extended lockdowns amidst the higher risks of a third wave of COVID-19 (that Dr. David Williams confirmed yesterday) with the need to provide relief for lockdown-weary businesses and residents in regions across Ontario.
Meanwhile, multiple reports have said that restaurant workers won't be included in Phase 2 of Ontario's vaccine rollout program. The Ministry of Health informed Restaurants Canada, an organization that represents the food service industry, of the decision on Wednesday, March 17, 2021. Restaurants Canada said "it took them about a week and a half of back-and-forth with various ministry officials" before they were able to get a straight answer.