Toronto Bills BBQ Restaurant Owner $187,000 for Costs Spent Enforcing Its Closure
The city of Toronto is asking the owner of an Etobicoke barbecue restaurant to pay $187,000 in costs it incurred when police tried to enforce COVID-19 lockdown orders at his business last year.
In November 2020, Adam Skelly, the owner of Adamson Barbecue, flouted the city’s COVID-19 restrictions that prohibited bars and restaurants from providing dine-in services. Toronto police called on the business multiple times in attempt to enforce the rules, and Toronto Medical Officer of Health Dr. Eileen de Villa eventually ordered the closure of the establishment located on Queen Elizabeth Boulevard.
Toronto reports 440 new cases of COVID-19
2:30 pm Here are today’s COVID-19 numbers, as reported by Toronto Medical Officer of Health Dr. Eileen de Villa:
There are 440 new cases in Toronto
426 people are in hospital
16 more people have died in the past day
There are 32 confirmed cases of the UK variant in the city
Toronto to reopen Convention Centre vaccination site
2:20 pm The city will temporarily reopen the mass vaccination site at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on February 15-16 to administer second doses to 378 health-care workers who received their first vaccine dose in the clinic in January.
Toronto Fire Chief Matthew Pegg said today the temporary reopening will only be for people with scheduled second doses. First doses will not be administered, nor will the clinic be open to the public, he added.
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Between vaccine shortages, massive workplace outbreaks, the arrival of deadly new viral variants and a reluctance among some citizens to follow social gathering restrictions, there doesn t appear to be an end in sight to the COVID-19 pandemic.
That s not saying the situation can t improve rapidly, or that we ll be in lockdown for much longer, but Toronto City Council seems to have reason enough to believe that our COVID-specific bylaws should remain in place until at least this summer.
All of these bylaws were set to expire as soon as the ongoing multi-day City Council meeting ends, but will instead now be in effect until 12:01 a.m. on the first day after the City Council meeting currently scheduled for June 8 and 9, 2021.
TORONTO Toronto Mayor John Tory says that the time has come to begin discussions about what the gradual reopening of the city might look like. Tory made the comment to reporters during a briefing on Wednesday afternoon while also acknowledging that his perspective is that of an “elected representative” and not a public health expert. “I believe the time has come to start to talk about it only so that we can have a proper, thoughtful plan that is both respectful of the needs of people and businesses but also very respectful of the fact that when we do come to reopen, one assumes we will have made sufficient progress against the virus that we can’t afford to backslide from,” he said. “I think the time has come to begin those discussions in earnest in a real practical way and develop the kind of program we had in the spring where it didn’t happen all in one day.”