Lots of chatter today in our community over the June 8 Phase Reopening target date. Resto & bar people are trying to quickly get their heads around what reopening to the public may look like.

This is not all an easy exercise. A couple of thoughts:

First, I was asked whether my perspective has changed on reopening. I came out pretty strong on prioritizing safety and not reopening until we are able to manage that as a primary issue.

While my tone has perhaps changed I don’t think my core position has.

The reality is our city is ready to continue incremental reopening of businesses. We’ve done really well.

This doesn’t mean that we will be infection free but that our health care system should be ready for infection events. This is an incredibly important distinction.

I continue to think each of us as business owners have an obligation to prioritize people, safety & continued flattening of the curve. These issues need to be more important than seeking revenue.

Simply put, we shouldn’t push the envelope on safety to make a quick buck.

Second, even if you can get your head around safe operation of your ordinary (pre-covid) course business it doesn’t mean that you can do so commercially. We’ve found over the last few months that it is much more expensive to get our beer to market than it was with a taproom

This makes sense - we are having to reposition our operations, create lower margin sales and distribution channels and redeploy unused capital. But we’ve got ourselves to the point where we can see a rhythm developing.

Reverting to the taproom won’t magically resolve this - it will in fact revive or in some cases regress.

It will cost a lot of money to turn our business back into what it was with LTD commercial opportunity.

I’m not sure that course makes much business sense for us just yet.

It is highly likely that our taproom won’t really be in a position to safely open until there is a vaccine. We are prepared for that and have developed other options.

Others will be in a better position to open or will have limited other options. I get that.

That said, I am much more inspired to think about creative ways to do business than to just turn the taproom lights back on. What we have been doing is working and there is no appetite to put the genie back in the bottle.

Home delivery of alcohol has been a boon - for breweries and restaurants. And there has been an accidental positive policy development - lowered impaired driving and more tax $$$.

This privilege shouldn’t go away once covid is managed to a point of full economic reopening.

Maybe it’s time we start thinking more creatively about places where you can consume alcohol - outside versus a small (but inviting!) Taproom. There is a lot to be learned from how Europe approaches alcohol consumption. I’m willing to bet it is also safer in the covid age.

Finally, there will be increased infections and workplace infections with reopening. We shouldn’t be scared when this happens - outbreaks are going to be inevitable.

But that goes back to a point I heard @PremierScottMoe make today - we didn’t isolate to eliminate the virus but to await the capacity of our health care system.

What we need to be really careful to do during reopening is support those places of business that try hard but experience workplace infections.

We were very concerned about business failure during the first wave. We offered empathy, understanding, deliberate purchasing choices.

We must be similarly concerned about business failure that arises if someone has to shut down temporarily due to infection.

That sort of situation scares us all.

Businesses now need to invest in good post-infection procedures and communication protocols now and guidance from @SaskHealth is very welcome.

If fellow business owners are struggling with this and want some help, DM me. We’ve got some pretty good internal procedures that have been vetted by our health inspector. Not saying it will work for your business but there may be things in there you can steal.

Another very positive development has been increased testing for reopening businesses next week, regardless of symptoms. This is marvellous. I am going to get tested myself even though I don’t know what the result might be. Knowing where the virus is is key.

The mental and health tolls of reopening and reclosing will be great. We’ve put ourselves in a position to take these next steps due to our diligence and decision making based on health info.

Let’s keep up that approach each next step of the way and walk through this together.