This week Kamloops City Council gave businesses the green light to use sidewalks and parking lots to observe social distancing and so far owners and managers seem to be on board.

Executive Director of the Kamloops Central Improvement Association, Carl DeSantis, was on the NL Morning News and said he’s seen first hand, downtown businesses gearing up to take things outdoors. “The morning after council meeting, I was driving downtown and I saw Todd, one of the owners of The Vic.”

“He was out on the sidewalk with a measuring tape early in the morning so I pulled over and had a chat, offered to hold one end of the tape and he was out doing some preliminary measurements for a patio proposal.”

“I understand he’s going to submit that to the city and the city, they’re going to do everything they can to have these applications turned around within a week and at no cost to the businesses anywhere in the city that want to get patios onto sidewalks, so that’s really exciting.”

DeSantis says stakeholders he’s spoken to are eager to learn what to do to move forward. “I’ve had a lot of conversations with businesses and there’s lots of questions being asked about the logistics and barriers and opportunities and all of those things and we look forward to continuing those conversations and hopefully we’ll see more patios being introduced in the weeks to come.”

As far as funding from the city goes, DeSantis says stakeholders aren’t looking for a hand out, they’re looking for a hand up and anything the community can do support local and keep businesses afloat is very much appreciated.