Penetanguishene and area residents could be getting back on this ice starting early next month after council approved a phased reopening of the arena.
But before councillors voted in favour of the reopening at their recent meeting, they had a few questions for the town's recreation staff.
"My only concern is leaving the concession stand agreement up to the operator," said Coun. Debbie Levy. "I understand, goodness knows I understand,. how difficult it's been for business owners. I think when the arena is open, we start charging the concession operator. I've never in my life seen a contract where the tenant gets to decide when they will start to pay. I find that a little odd."
She said as a business owner she's sympathetic with others in the same position.
"I find this a bit loosy goosy," added Levy of the contract clause mentioned in the staff report. "I'd like to hear from colleagues about how they feel about this."
Sherry Desjardins, director of recreation and community services, clarified that the town has not yet signed any agreements with the concession operator.
"I've had extensive discussions with (the Snack Shack owner)," she noted, adding there's also an exit clause built into the agreement. "She wants to continue to service the arena. She does service the bulk of municipalities around. None of them are charging her. Midland was charging her a small amount and I believe that's being revisited."
She said health unit recommendations are behind the town's decisions surrounding the concession stand.
"(The recommendation) is not to have food service happening in the same space," she said. "Unless we're providing a segregated seating area, they don't recommend that we allow her to reopen. If she can't make a go of it, she's just going to pull the plug anyhow and then we would be looking to secure someone to use that space. We don't believe it's very marketable at this point."
Coun. George Vadeboncoeur inquired about staff's recommendation to double facility staff hours to 80 per week. The staff report says that a portion of these hours will be used to sanitize and clean, ensure compliance with regulations, provide education to the public and ensure appropriate screening and contact tracing is followed.
"I appreciate the reasons for the recommendation," he said. "I'm just wondering if other models were looked at, specifically of adding 40 hours per week for the facility sanitization, etc. and asking the user groups, through their networks, to designate a volunteer or volunteers to assist with the keeping track of the people that are coming in and going out. I'm just wondering why the municipality selected this model than using the volunteer model?"
Desjardins said staff did consider other models.
"(Public health) strongly recommends that facilities manage the contact tracing themselves and not leave it up to user groups," she said. "If there's an outbreak, they will expect the facility to deliver accurate information at that time."
The staff person that would be doing the screening would also be disinfecting high touch points around the arena as well as reminding people to wear maskes and socially distance, said Desjardins.
"There are limited ways of holding volunteers accountable to that," she added. "Different user groups use different areas of the facility at the same time and we would like the town to do contact tracing."
Mayor Doug Leroux agreed with Desjardins.
"I'm not totally sold on having volunteers do our (contact) tracing," he said. "We have to meet public-health guidelines."
Coun. Brian Cummings wanted to know if the town would be hiring additional staff to cover the additional hours.
Desjardins said the arena has traditionally had two part-time staff working 40 hours a week.
"We haven't decided how that complement will change at this time," she said, adding, any additional positions will be contract positions.
Vadeboncoeur then asked about the possibility of reopening earlier.
"If the dehumidifier is up and running and the ice is in before Oct. 5, would we have the ability to rent ice prior to that date?" he said.
Desjardins said the date mentioned was set to provide staff enough time to put together "our processes" and communicate with user groups.
"We haven't been able to put pen to paper yet and fine tune that," she said, adding staff have to be trained and comfortable with protocols before the arena is reopened.
Vadeboncoeur then asked about phase two of the reopening.
"It's mentioned that rental to (private groups) would be part of phase two," he said. "Is it that some guys wanting to get together and play some shinny? Is there ability to move that component to phase one?"
Desjardins said she would recommend keeping that in the second phase of reopening.
"We're not putting onus on user groups to do screening, but there's still onus on them to organize play," she said. "I think shinny would require additional level of monitoring for staff and we want them to be more comfortable with our primary user groups before we get to that."
Requests sent to user groups for comment on the reopening were not returned in time for publication.
