People have been generally behaving in restaurants in Burnaby and beyond, which is why Dr. Bonnie Henry hasn’t shut them down - yet.
But I give big credit to the owners, management and, most importantly, the servers who are enforcing policies aimed at keeping people a safe distance from each other.
Like the server and manager at the Kensington White Spot who handled a COVID denier on Sunday night.
This White Spot has a lounge area that includes a bar so people can sit and watch sports on the big TVs.
I like sitting at the bar because the way management has designed it, there are only a few seats available to keep people far apart from each other.
They have giant stickers on each seat that say you can’t sit there. They are huge and you can’t miss them.
So I’m sitting there watching Sunday night football when a dude who looked to be about 70 comes in and tries to sit in one of the chairs that is clearly marked as not available.
Let me set the scene. The place was pretty dead. There was me at the bar and another guy way on the end. The elderly dude tried to sit between us when there were about eight or nine empty tables behind us – all with a clear view of the game.
I politely (yes, I can be very polite) told the dude that he couldn’t sit there. He asked why and I pointed to the giant sticker on the chair and said that he would be too close to me and the other patron at the bar.
He looked at me, shrugged and then proceeded to sit in the chair.
So, yeah, I stopped being polite and more forcefully explained that he was too close to me and the other guy, who started chirping this guy too.
It was incredible. The ink was barely dry on a new provincial order based on surging cases and this dude thought we were both “overreaching” even though this guy was less than six feet away from us.
“Go back to your basement and hide,” the dude said. “This is all about nothing.”
That’s when I asked the server to get the manager. He did and she stepped in and explained the situation. The dude started whining about how it was all unfair and the manager pointed out that there were plenty of tables to sit at and this was the White Spot policy in order to ensure everyone is safe.
She forced him to move and while he grumbled a lot, he complied.
When I paid my bill I added a big, fat tip that was way more than my bill because I wanted the staff to know how much I appreciated these efforts. It would've been easy to just ignore the situation. I will be returning.
It sucks that staff have to deal with this instead of having grownups just follow the rules, but here we are.
Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44.
