The Okotoks & District Chamber of Commerce has formally submitted a letter to Premier Jason Kenney requesting more clarity around when and how businesses might be permitted to reopen.

They're following suit after a similar letter was sent by the Alberta Chambers of Commerce, as well as several other Alberta chambers including Grande Prairie, Lethbridge, and Vegreville.

In the letter, the chamber requested the provincial government to release a re-opening plan that includes indicators or milestones business owners can look toward in order to better gauge when restrictions may be lifted.

Policy Coordinator Alex Zabel says as it stands, there's no end in sight for those whose businesses have remained closed since early-December.

"There's no way to guess what's going to happen next, what the next announcement is going to say, whether we're open or whether we're closed. How are you supposed to make a cash flow? How are you supposed to do basic business management when you have no idea what's gonna come out of the government next?"

She says many members of the Okotoks business community had mid-January in mind for a reopening date, simply because it was all they had to go by.

"I had a number of conversations of people where they said, "I'm sure that they're gonna open, there's no way they could not allow us to reopen, given what we heard they were doing over the holiday,' and then lo and behold, we saw extensions."

Even following Thursday's announcement that personal wellness services such as barbershops and salons would be permitted to reopen, Zabel says, if anything, the announcement exemplified why more transparency is needed, given that it came out-of-the-blue for many business owners.

"I think we're just seeing the point where it's untenable, where it's very very difficult to go forward, and we're all seeing that within our communities at the same time."

 

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