In a 10-2 vote during Monday’s city council meeting, it was decided that indoor seating capacity limits be increased to 50 per cent.

Administration will be preparing to report back at the upcoming meeting to determine whether this will require increased cost to the city. Allowing more individuals into arenas would mean more sanitization measures, and more screening required at the door. It is still being determined whether this will mean less ice times to ensure the increased capacity is done so in the safest way possible.

Mayor Bill Mauro brought up a few solutions as to how this can be prevented, mentioning community involvement.

“The user groups need to be part of the solution here,” says Mauro. “When I’ve talked to them they’ve told me they’d be very willing to be part of the solution, so in terms of that staffing piece, we’re talking about the staffing and the costing, but it would seem like there should be a relatively large volunteer component of the community willing to support that part of what needs to be done, to facilitate higher numbers.”

Part of the consultation process has involved discussions with user groups in the city that would be affected by increased capacity at the venues. General Manager of Community Services Kelly Robertson stated that along with this, Thunder Bay has looked at how other cities have managed this.

“We have reached out to approximately 14 municipalities, and I would say we are operating similarly to our colleagues in other municipalities,” explains Robertson. “Some have not set a limit of 45 per cent or depending on their particular participation because they don’t need to, they’re not getting more spectators at the types of activities that are operating at this caliber of an indoor facility, so that’s the response we got from some of the other operators we talked to.”

The discussion was initiated by McIntyre Ward Councillor Albert Aiello, who believes that council may be putting too much thought into the increased cleaning that could come with an increased capacity.

“Again, we’re not really doing anything new here,” says Aiello. “We did this last hockey season, there’s nothing new here. People got screened, we had limits, there’s nothing new here. Cleaning? Cleaning is a spray bottle and a rag. There’s not intensive cleaning that needs to be perceived like this is a big cleaning thing. It’s a spray bottle and a rag, and you wipe a bench. That’s the cleaning. That can be done by the coaches before leaving the dressing room, that can be done by parent volunteers, there really isn’t an issue, we’re making it an issue, but there isn’t one here. This 50 per cent, are you ever going to achieve them at 155 people? Maybe, possibly for a hockey game but never for a practice, the majority of time you’re not going to achieve these.”

Council also voted down a referral twice that would have pushed off the discussion to the upcoming meeting.

It is estimated that the increased capacity can be effective in around a months time, and it still unclear how the upcoming provincial vaccine passport app may make the screening process at the doors simpler.

Capacity limits for spectators at 50%: 
 Port Arthur Arena – 308
 Current River Arena – 155
 Delaney Arena – 110
 Neebing Arena – 94
 Grandview – 102