Toronto's mayor says additional restrictions may be needed to limit crowds at malls this holiday season

TORONTO -- Additional restrictions could be coming for the retail sector amid concerns about “crowd scenes” in the lead up to the holidays, Mayor John Tory says.

Tory made the comment to CP24 during an interview on Monday morning, noting that possible new restrictions at stores and in malls are something that the city is “taking a hard look at” in consultation with their provincial counterparts.

“The malls have proven to be a crowd scene and look there is a lot of good to that - people are doing their holiday shopping and the stores are doing business which is all very important from the standpoint of the economy - but if we are looking to cut down on crowd scenes and encouraging people to stay home then the notion of whether you have some capacity restrictions in stores and malls is clearly something that has to be on the table,” he said.

Malls are still allowed to operate in red zones like Toronto under the province’s framework for COVID-19 restrictions but the document does identify limiting capacity during the winter holiday season as something that should be considered.

Tory refused to provide specifics when it came to the type of restrictions being discussed for the retail sector but hinted that they could be announced “in days” with the support of the Progressive Conservative government.

At a separate briefing on Monday afternoon, Health Minister Christine Elliott also acknowledged that her government is concerned about large numbers of people heading to malls to get their holiday shopping done but stopped short of promising new capacity restrictions.

Elliot did say that she has already had several conversations with Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Williams about “recommendations for the upcoming holiday season” and expects that to be made public “very shortly.”

“When large groups of people get together in places like malls that can end up as a super spreader event so we nee to be very careful about that,” she said. “Of course there are other ways that people can shop online and so on. We don’t want people to miss out on having a happy celebration but there are safe ways to do that and ways that aren’t going to endanger your health or the health of the people around you.”

Currently, retail stores are the same capacity limits as most other business – 50 people indoors. The province, however, has reduced the maximum capacity in some business in red zones – like bars, restaurants and gyms – to 10 people.