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Letter: Burnaby must close Deer Lake because people aren't listening

Editor: All this week, the Deer Lake parking lot has been substantially full and hundreds of people have been congregating at the lakefront and on trails.
deer lake sign burnaby
City of Burnaby workers put up a sign about the new one-way route at Deer Lake. (Yes, they should be standing farther apart.) John Preissl photo

Editor:

All this week, the Deer Lake parking lot has been substantially full and hundreds of people have been congregating at the lakefront and on trails.

It’s all well and good to have six-foot distance warning signs posted and one-way traffic on the trails, but the boardwalk is less than five-feet wide – and the overwhelming public health policy requires people to stay home.

Unless you close the trails and parking lot, this long weekend will see the lakefront, parking lot and trails fill to capacity as they do every long weekend. People believe because the lakefront is not closed, they can go there – and go there they will – as it is forecast to be sunny and warm – and there’s precious little left of public venue that hasn’t been closed around the Lower Mainland.

And in so doing, there is little doubt that people will congregate en masse and unsafely, spreading the virus amongst themselves before they return to their own communities where they will spread it some more – and so on and so on.

The Lower Mainland thus far has been more fortunate than other major areas – do your part to keep it that way and please close Deer Lake.

Kerry Tatelman, Burnaby