Despite snow day, businesses reopen and welcome clients as Windsor-Essex enters COVID-19 red zone

Just as the provincial stay-at-home order was lifted and Windsor-Essex came out of a two-month COVID-19 lockdown, significant snowfall forced many people to continue remaining indoors Tuesday.

But Dave Stephan wasn't one of them.

"Freedom" is how Stephan described being able to sit at Average Joe's Sports Bar and drink a beverage, despitebattlinga snowstorm to get there.

"It's nice," he said."All these businesses can open up and retrieve some of their money."

Windsor-Essex is one of 11 regions that moved into the province's 'red-control' COVID-19 zone Tuesday after an emergencyorder and lockdown were lifted for most of the province. Four regions, including Toronto, York Region, Peel Region and North Bay Parry Sound, remain under a stay-at-home order until Feb. 22.

While local businesses opened their doors to a limited number of clients, one owner saidthe 20 centimetres of snowput a damper on the reopening.

"Thesnow storm has snowed on our parade," said Average Joe's Sports Bar owner Colleen Kelly. "Snow makes a little bit of a difference people aren'tlining up at the door to get in this morning but we're ready to go. We're excited to get back to normal."

But the scene is still far from normal as restaurants and bars are only allowed to have 10 people indoors, plus staff.

Meanwhile, retailers can see higher capacity limits, with grocery stores, convenience stores and pharmacies operating at 75 per cent and all other businesses, including non-essential ones, opening to 50 per cent.

For Kelly, the 10 person limit is barely a fraction of the 300 person capacity her restaurant can service.

"It's hard, it will be a sigh of relief when we can move into orange. Red is really difficult for the food and beverage industry," she said, adding that they not only want to welcome more clients but bring back staff members.

Among those reopening was barber Quinn Jenkins, who owns Olde Riverside Barbershop.

"I'm actually surprised they lifted it, I thought that it would be a little bit longer than what it is," Jenkins said. "It's a struggle you know because we count on this money for our survival - pay our bills, pay our car payments, things like that. It's been tough."

While Jenkins barely survived, two businesses in Windsor's downtown core did not, according to chair of the Downtown Windsor Business Improvement Association (BIA)Brian Yeomans.

"Is it frustrating? Absolutely. They've put into a really challenging situation and a lot of these businesses, when we saw they're small businesses, it's often run by one or two people or a family," he said.

Local small businesses that are considered non-essentialwere frustrated throughout the two month lockdownand advocated to reopen with capacity limits. The Downtown Windsor BIA even started a petition asking the provincial government to consider making its restrictions more fair to retailers.

The City of Windsor saidit will not yet offer all its services until the region moves into the 'orange-restrict' zone. As of Wednesday, the only amenity coming back is outdoor skating rinks.