Get it to-go: Sackville restaurants close their dining rooms temporarily
Some Sackville businesses are going above and beyond orange phase restrictions this time around.
Orange level restrictions require sit-down restaurants to check that all patrons are only sitting with their own single-household bubble, maintain social distancing and a capacity, and strict mask-wearing policies.
All establishments are also required to keep diligent records of all customers’ contact information.
A few restaurants and bars around town say that this is too much to ask, and not as safe as take-out.
Malcolm Campbell, a manager at Cranewood on Main, says the bakery is doing take-out only.
Malcolm Campbell: Number one, safety. We want to limit the exposure. They’re recommending that people don’t eat in restaurants sitting in confined spaces sharing the air. And also, there was talk last orange phase that restaurants were being forced to card people and ensure that people were sitting within their bubble, which is essentially impossible. In Sackville, where half of our clientele is students, whose address and bubbles do not reflect where they actually live. So someone may be in a bubble, two people may live together in the same apartment, but have addresses in different provinces because they’re university students. We have no way of verifying if people are actually in their bubble, and we want to follow the rules.… Continue
Province rejects Sackville’s request for federal COVID relief
Listen to this story on Tantramar Report, or here:
The province has rejected the town of Sackville’s entire funding request to cover COVID-related costs from a federal fund designed for that purpose.
The federal government allotted $41.1 million to local governments in New Brunswick, the province’s share of a $2-billion package announced back in July.
Most provinces opted to distribute funding on a per capita basis, immediately informing municipalities how much they would receive. In New Brunswick, local government minister Daniel Allain instead required local governments to do some paperwork.
Local governments were required to report the net impact of COVID-19 on their 2020 finances, and then have a resolution passed by their elected councils.
The request was light on details, says Sackville treasurer Michael Beal, but town staff went ahead and came up with a request of just under $291,000.
“We basically reviewed and spent a lot of time going through our books, our records and documenting a lot of this,” Beal told town council last night. “We did have savings that were non-COVID-related,” he said, which “would have happened either way.”
The province rejected the town’s claims, including:
- payroll costs relating to COVID-19,
- Levee on the Lake costs, as a COVID event,
- costs relating to use of the arena as a Mount Allison welcome centre,
- and sewage treatment costs that were credited back to customers as a form of COVID relief to ratepayers.
Sackville Film Society screenings postponed
New Brunswick’s COVID-19 cases continue to climb this week, resulting in the entire province sliding back to orange level restrictions.
These restrictions allow for entertainment venues, including cinemas, to remain open with a COVID-19 operational plan.
Such a plan includes an occupancy limit of 50, strict social distancing, continuous mask use, and record keeping.
Despite the province’s permission, Thaddeus Holownia says the Sackville Film Society is postponing all screenings until next week at the earliest, citing safety concerns.
Most of the members of the private club are older people, Holownia mentions.
On Wednesday, Holownia announced the decision on Facebook “after much discussion.”
The feedback from members, he says, has been “100% positive.”
The Sackville Film Society will reevaluate next week, and base their decision on COVID-19 case numbers.… Continue
Sackville says Happy New Year online
The town of Sackville marked the beginning of 2021 much like it has many events of the past year: online.
In a video posted to the town’s social media page, Town Crier David Fullerton delivered a New Year’s Message for Sackville in the town’s online version of its annual levee.
“My wish for 2021 is that we all be there for each other during this difficult time, in this new way of life,” says Fullerton. “It is amazing how uplifting and appreciated a simple phone call can be for someone who is alone and confined to home.”
The video also features a speech from Deputy Mayor Ron Aiken, a poem read by Sackville Poet Laureate Shoshanna Wingate, and a montage of photos from 2020 featuring many of the town’s rec programs in action.
The video also included a reprieve of this year’s COVID- friendly Canada Day celebrations featuring local fiddlers Stacey Read, The Carter Girls, Quinn MacAskill, Del Wheaton, Royal Hicks, Brianna Ogden, Hannah Wade, and Ray Legere.
In his message, Deputy Mayor Ron Aiken gave an overview of some of the accomplishments of the past year, including:
- adjusting programming and services to meet COVID-19 safety guidelines;
- hiring a new CAO (Jamie Burke) and senior manager of corporate projects (Kieran Miller);
- collaborating with Mount Allison on the Mt.
A year in review with MLA Megan Mitton
Megan Mitton, MLA for the Memramcook-Tantramar riding, was re-elected in September with 41.6% of the votes.
Mitton has been MLA through 2020, the year of the COVID-19 pandemic, a snap election, and the near closure of overnight services at the Sackville Memorial Hospital.
CHMA news called Mitton to review the ups and downs of this year.
Listen to the full interview here:
Meg Cunningham: Back to the beginning of the year, which feels like forever ago, [was] the threat of closure of the Sackville Memorial Hospital. I was curious to know where we are at with that, or where the government is at with that in terms of the security of the Sackville Memorial Hospital.
Megan Mitton: Yeah, it is hard to remember. Everything pre-pandemic does feel very long ago. But that is one of the major things that happened in our riding, and then in several areas in the province earlier this year. We were successful in getting the government to at least promise that they weren’t going to be shutting down our ERs [emergency rooms] overnight… we asked them to say that in the house. They have maintained that, that is true. However, we still don’t have a very clear picture of what’s going to happen. So bringing us up to right now, I know that the Minister of Health has requested visions, the vision for health care, from some different groups.… Continue
A year in review with Ron Aiken, Sackville’s deputy mayor
As part of CHMA’s year-in-review week on Tantramar Report, Erica Butler sat down with Sackville’s deputy mayor, Ron Aiken, to reflect back on 2020.
Aiken looks back (and forward) on the town’s experience with the COVID-19 shutdown, the threat to services at the Sackville hospital, hirings and retirings with the town, and the postponed municipal elections due to happen this May.
Here’s the conversation:
TRANSCRIPT:
ERICA BUTLER:
Deputy Mayor Ron Aiken, thank you so much for joining me.
RON AIKEN:
Oh, my pleasure.
EB:
So 2020 obviously has been dominated by COVID-19. So maybe we should start off by harkening back to March in Sackville, and talking about how that initial lockdown affected the town.
RA:
To go back, it was March 13th when everything locked down. And for the town that meant we had to do a lot of very complex things in a big hurry. We had to essentially develop an operational plan for COVID, about how we’re going to conduct the town business and so on. We had to start working with Mount A about getting the students here safely, both for themselves and for the rest of town. So we developed that Mount A-Community bubble. And then we had to do the council meetings, virtually, which I guess people will remember took a couple of months to sort out all the glitches. But I think we got it down pretty well after a couple of tries.… Continue
A year in review with Laura Reinsborough, director of Food For All NB
Food For All NB is a non-profit organization that aims to educate New Brunswickers about food security.
As director, Reinsborough has had a busy year since COVID-19 complicated access to food security programs across the province.
She and her team were quick to respond by publishing grant opportunities, food maps, and community resources on Food For All NB’s website.
Reinsborough provides a detailed recap of what Food For All NB accomplished in 2020, and suggests some long-term solutions to food insecurity in New Brunswick.
The full interview is available here:
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Spotting the Great Conjunction from Sackville
It looks like Sackville might have a partially clear night this Saturday, December 19. If we are so lucky, we might get a clear enough view of the night sky to see a once-in-400-year phenomenon called the Great Conjunction.
Erica Butler called up Mount Allison professor and astronomer Catherine Lovekin to explain exactly what it was all about:
CATHERINE LOVEKIN:
So, a conjunction is just when two objects appear close together in the sky. This conjunction is between Jupiter and Saturn, which are two of the largest planets in the solar system. And so they’re pretty much the brightest planets. They’re easy to see. They’re very easily visible in the sky, even if you live somewhere with lots of light pollution.
This conjunction is particularly interesting, because it’s the closest they’ve come together in almost 400 years. The last time they were this close together in the sky was in 1623. And so it’s just a very pretty sight. They’re going to be very, very close. You will still be able to distinguish them, depending on conditions, but they’re going to be very, very close together.
I was out on Wednesday night, which was very clear, and it was really beautiful, because they were right above the new moon, and it was really, really nice to see.
ERICA BUTLER:
Do you have special spots that you like to go stargazing in and around Sackville and Tantramar?
CL:
Well, this was just from the end of my driveway.… Continue
Dr. Russell urges New Brunswickers to stay home for the holidays
During Thursday’s COVID-19 update, Dr. Russell reminded New Brunswickers that the virus does not take a holiday break.
Dr. Russell cited the increase of COVID-19 cases in the United States after American Thanksgiving as an example of a post-holiday spike.
Though she gave self-isolation instructions, Dr. Russell urges New Brunswickers to stay home for the holidays.
Meg Cunningham: Good afternoon my question is for Dr. Russell. Can you walk me through the steps, from start to finish, that a person would have to take to visit a friend or family member for the holidays in a different province, in order to do so safely and within Public Health guidelines?
Dr. Jennifer Russell: Well, I think all of my colleagues across the country would say that non-essential travel is not advised. So going to visit a family member or a friend is non-essential travel, and it’s not advised. So that’s the number one point that again, my colleagues across the country, including the Atlantic Bubble, have been messaging to their citizens [and] to their provinces. We want to get through the holiday season as safely as possible so that we don’t see spikes in January. We are really, really concerned that gatherings over the holidays and travel over the holidays will contribute to that. So that’s the first and foremost thing, is there are risks right now [with] traveling because the numbers are so high all across this country, and all across the US.… Continue
Ensemble to install harm reduction “vending machine” in Sackville
Sackville will host a “vending machine,” or an interactive dispensing service, containing harm reduction supplies.
Executive Director of Ensemble Moncton, Debby Warren, says she was amazed by the machines at a national conference in Ottawa in 2019.
Now, almost exactly a year later, Ensemble is the proud owner of two interactive dispensing service machines.
The first is installed in Moncton, with the second one to arrive in Sackville, New Brunswick.
Meg Cunningham: I’m talking to you today about the harm reduction vending machines that you got recently because of a $45,000 grant, the COVID-19 relief grant for nonprofits. Before we get to that, I’m wondering if you can tell me a little bit about Ensemble, for those who might not have heard of you.
Debby Warren: Okay, so some may have heard of us under the name of AIDS Moncton. We have been serving Westmorland-Albert county since 1989. So we’re not new, even though our name appears to be new. In the past, we did a lot of work around HIV prevention, and support for those who are living with HIV and AIDS. We’re still about HIV, hepatitis C, sexually transmitted and blood borne infections. That is the premise behind the work that we do. There are populations that are at greater risk for that. Our priority populations now are people who use substances, [they] certainly fall in that category.… Continue