ELGIN COUNTY, ONT. -- You may be longing to dive into one of the four beaches allowed to reopen in Elgin county on Friday at 12:01 a.m., but you’ll have to wait a little longer.
Elgin County warden, Dave Mennill, said the decision to open beaches has been left to individual municipalities and there isn’t enough time until Friday, to create a uniform policy across all four beaches.
“We entered stage two but that doesn’t say you must open, it says you can open,” said Mennill.
“There is not enough time to get proper signage in place, you can see all the drift wood is on the beach, we’ll be cleaning that up this weekend.”
Central Elgin Mayor Sally Martyn told CTV news that the mayors of the four municipalities, including, Mennill, who is the mayor of Malahide, have set a tentative date to reopen beaches on June 22.
A press conference will be held Thursday at Main Beach in Port Stanley to discuss rules and regulations the public is required to follow.
The push to open beaches in the county may affect small businesses who rely on beach foot-traffic.
Mark Coppard who co-owns the food truck on the pier called, The Pier, said business is booming despite the water being off limits and that he doesn’t mind that the beach won’t be re-open on the weekend.
“With COVID-19 happening it’s brought people out for a drive to come into town. They stop to eat and go on their way again...We’re up [earnings] from last year. We are probably doubling what we did last season at this time,” said Coppard.
As a part of phase two, Ministry of the Environment and Conservation parks announced today in a news release that beaches at Ontario parks are open to the public on June 12.
Grand Bend, another hot spot for getting cool, was not given the all clear to reopen.
“We did not get to move into stage 2 like the rest of the province,” said Lambton Shores Mayor Bill Weber.
“That was a disappointment for our businesses.”
Weber said preparations are underway to safely open Grand Bend whenever the government gives the clear.
“Our goal...hopefully.... is that we can be open July 1. Anything sooner than that is a positive,” said Weber.