The Blue Grotto nightclub in Kamloops is back open after a two-week long COVID-19 related closure.

Owner Pup Johnston tells NL News it was a slower weekend than he was expecting.

“It has been so up and down. The provincial health authority has their rules and then IH has sort of a different set of rules for the Interior and then coming off of that event, that was a little bit of ambiguity,” he said.

“We were shut down for the first weekend and then the second weekend, which was the Halloween weekend, we could have been open on the Saturday night but there was an unfortunate problem with the band and we decided to cancel that Saturday night.”

At least 18 people tested positive for COVID-19 after a concert at The Blue Grotto back on Oct. 14. At least another six people tested negative, according to Johnston, who said last month that he did not want to speculate how the virus got into the nightclub.

“This was an weird event. An unprecedented breakout that really shouldn’t have happened. Actually, one of the best behaved, easiest managed shows to date of like not having to constantly remind people to keep their masks on when they’re walking around inside the bar,” he added, this week.

“The bands were extremely professional. They all did rapid tests before they even came into the building. It is inexplicable. Even IH, even the PHO, nobody can really explain what happened here that day.”

Moving forward, Johnston says he is hoping to be able to keep The Blue Grotto open without any further COVID related issues.

“Did we get what was expected from the vaccine out of this event? I think, yeah, we did. And I think people need to feel confidence in the fact the way the event was managed was good,” he added.

“The outbreak was unprecedented and moving forward, I think that is what we need to look at is like ‘are you confident that is the way it is going to go from now on until we see no cases from COVID’ which god knows how far in the future that could be.”