CANMORE – Canmore's elected officials have voted to make face coverings mandatory for anyone lined up outside a retail store or food establishment, but backed away from closing down Main Street to create a pedestrian zone.
At a special meeting on Tuesday (Dec. 15), Canmore council considered amendments to its mask bylaw, which mandates wearing masks for indoor public areas. The week before, council had directed administration to bring back changes requiring face coverings for the outdoor spaces from Railway Avenue to Eighth Avenue.
However, council voted against the change, with Coun. Joanna McCallum noting they may be trying to regulate something that is not a problem at this time.
"What is the problem that we are trying to solve here?" McCallum asked. "We do not have a problem and our numbers are dropping drastically."
McCallum said she is seeing people in the community wearing masks or face coverings while walking along Main Street and there appears to be compliance with the two-metre social distancing rules while lined up outside businesses and the post office.
Coun. Karen Marra, however, put forward a motion to require masks for line ups outside retail stores and food establishments throughout the community, which won the support of her fellow council members.
Mayor John Borrowman said the amendment was crafted in a way to address his concerns about the potential for transmission of the virus while people are lined up and waiting to enter a store and applied to all businesses in the community, not just Main Street.
"My observation is most people are wearing a mask, even outdoors, without a bylaw requiring that," he said. "Even indoors, we are seeing very high compliance with the bylaw."
Councillors Rob Seeley and Vi Sandford, on the other hand, supported focusing changes to the bylaw on Main Street.
"I have tried to socially distance on Main Street and I do not find it comfortable or easy," Sandford said. "I feel that where people are expected to walk downtown on the sidewalks, they are very narrow and passing people, especially where there are trees embedded in the sidewalk, is at very close quarters."
Council had also directed administration to return with recommendations for another road closure of Main Street to improve the safety for those in the downtown core.
General manager of municipal infrastructure Whitney Smithers provided council with a report that detailed the operational challenges to the closure and a lack of support from the downtown business community.
"Given the lessons we learned from the temporary closure this summer, what we have determined is there are considerable challenges to putting forward a winter closure," Smithers said. "From the businesses point of view, there is limited support for such a closure."
According to the staff report, there would be logistical challenges for a closure, including for snow removal and emergency access. The signage and pre-cast concrete barriers that were used for the closure in summer, would make it difficult for the municipality to manage in a snowfall event.
That would also result in difficulty for emergency access, should it be required. There would also be staffing challenges, as administration does not have the capacity to take on a project like this at this time.
"Clearly, closing Main Street in the winter is quite a different kettle of fish than closing Main Street in the summer months," Borrowman said.
"I did not have a specific end result in mind when I put forward the motion to direct administration to do the work, but I thought it was important we take some time to consider it. We have done that and I am quite confident moving forward with the status quo in this matter."
Last Thursday (Dec. 10) during a special meeting, McCallum said she would be watching Main Street over the weekend to determine if this kind of mitigation would be necessary.
"Although we knew there were visitors in our community, I certainly did not see downtown bear the brunt of that," she said.
