The mayor of Winkler is going to bat for two of the community's local business sectors. The province last week lifted some of its COVID-19 restrictions on retail operators, but not on the restaurant and fitness industries.

Mayor Harder is calling for consistency and fairness when the province enacts its health orders on businesses. Martin Harder posted some images on his Facebook page calling for the fair treatment of all businesses working hard to make their places safe for their customers through the Be Safe/Be Fair OpenMB campaign.

"We're not there to circumvent the system, and we're not suggesting that we can just throw the barn doors open and let everything go, but there are industries, in particular, the fitness industry as well as the restaurant industry, which have made huge strides to ensure that their facilities are safe, that there is separation in place, and that masks are mandatory except when eating. I don't think that we have seen a fair assessment of those services."

Harder argues there is no indication that restaurants and fitness centres are the reason for COVID-19 transmissions and believes it was unfair to force some retailers to close down during the code red period, while some of the larger store operators could remain open.

 
"It's a campaign that is simply asking for some consistency and opportunity for businesses to help them get back to some normalcy."

The mayor says he's thankful some adjustments were made last week to allow more retailers to open up for business, and is hopeful more improvements are coming.