Local business owners prepare to welcome back customers

Hardware stores and safety supply stores are once again welcoming customers inside, and on Monday, retail stores with a street entrance can begin offering curbside pickup and delivery.

Several other businesses have already reopened with restrictions in place. 

Although this comes as welcome news to many of our local businesses, the message from the business community as a whole is clear – we only want to open once.

Greg Durocher is the President and CEO of the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce and tells 570 NEWS many businesses cannot afford to have another shut down.

“Many, many, many small businesses are feeling the pressure right now and saying if this were to happen again, it’s unsustainable.”

Durocher says around 90 per cent of local businesses are preparing to reopen, regardless of whether or not their sector has been given the green light from the province.

“I get calls every single day saying, ‘ok Greg I need to get latex gloves, I need to have surgical masks, I need to have hand sanitizer, I need to have plexiglass barriers, where can I source some of this stuff?’”

Guidelines on how to open up safely are posted on the Chamber’s website.

Durocher adds, all businesses should be thinking about how to reopen and asking themselves a few questions,

“What am I going to have to do to create an environment where my employees are safe, and my customers are safe so that we aren’t responsible for having to be set back again and have another closure.”

Businesses that can now open their doors to customers will have to follow the same guidelines as grocery stores and pharmacies currently do, including promoting physical distancing and frequent hand-washing, sanitizing surfaces, installing physical barriers, staggering shifts, and offering contactless payment.