Provincial health order Dr. Bonnie Henry announced amended health orders pertaining to restaurants, bars and nightclubs. (Government of British Columbia)

By NanaimoNewsNOW Staff

ADDITIONAL RESTRICTIONS

Night clubs closed, liquor service at bars and restaurants limited after amended health order

Sep 8, 2020 | 3:33 PM

NANAIMO — Rising COVID-19 numbers across B.C. have forced the province’s hand.

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry further amended her existing health orders relating to bars, restaurants and night clubs on Tuesday, Sept. 8.

Night clubs and stand-alone banquet halls must remain closed. Liquor service at bars, pubs and restaurants must also stop by 10 p.m. with liquor-primary facilities ordered to close nightly by 11 p.m.

Establishments can remain open past 11 p.m. if they offer full meal service, but will be not allowed to serve alcohol.

“These restrictions are meant to take away that late night temptation that people have where we know there’s been mixing going on and where transmission is happening in these venues across the province,” Dr. Henry said.

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Dr. Henry’s amended order also placed restrictions on noise inside these venues. She said background music, televisions and other noise must be no louder than normal conversation levels.

Public health hopes this will limit the amount of shouting, loud talking or close contact among people together in a loud environment.

“We adjusted the orders to try and make it a safer environment for people but it in turn makes it more challenging to protect those who are more vulnerable to serious illness. We are starting to see some spill over into other parts of our community.”

Four new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in the Island Health region on Tuesday, since the province’s last update on Friday, Sept. 4. There are 184 total cases of COVID-19 through the Island Health region throughout the pandemic.

The cases were part of 429 new confirmed cases across British Columbia and bring the total number of active cases to 1,386. Of those, 32 are in hospital with 12 in intensive or critical care.

A total of 3,063 are currently under daily monitoring from public health, stemming from confirmed contact with a positive COVID-19 patient.

The province also reported two additional fatalities from the long weekend, the 213th so far in B.C.

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