Vaccination Mandate: How Does it Affect Local Businesses?
Businesses have been fighting hard ever since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. With the province initially entering a state of emergency for two months, they’ve taken a large financial hit. The latest of these blows stem from the newly implemented mandatory vaccination mandate that premier Blaine Higgs announced would take place on September 21st. 
Essentially, the mandate requires individuals to be double vaccinated to be able to access all non-essential series such as restaurants, gyms and the movie theatre.
Jungle Jim’s is one of the many businesses affected by this new rule. Manager and partial owner, Holly Mercer says that “business has gone down 42% from last month and is not getting any better.” This is a significant drop in sales and could be detrimental to any business. The lack of business doesn’t just affect the business and it’s owners, however- it also severely impacts the staff
Danoucha Hunter has been a server at the establishment for over a year and says the decrease in business has affected her own financial stability. “Ever since the recent mandate I’ve been having a lot of troubles, uh, keeping up with my budget because we have had such less customers.” Servers make the majority of their money through the tips they receive. However, less customers equals less tips.
The customers are also proving to be unhappy about the new mandate. Those, especially the unvaccinated, feel as though their business isn’t appreciated and some believe they’re being discriminated against, leading the businesses to potentially lose customers for good.
We can only hope that one way or another, COVID-19 gets resolved quickly so we can collectively begin to resume our normal lives and these worries and impacts on businesses be eradicated. This has been Milly Squires for St. Thomas University Journalism.