With the Emergency Brake Lockdown initiated by the provincial government, beginning Saturday, April 3, 12:01 a.m., the Town of Pelham is making changes to its facility’s operations to comply with these regulations.

Town Hall will be closed to the walk-in public. In-person meetings will only be permitted in exceptional circumstances during the lockdown and must be scheduled via email with the appropriate staff member in advance. Staff remain available to residents via telephone and email — a complete list of staff contact information at www.pelham.ca/contact.

The Meridian Community Centre is closed during the lockdown.

The Fonthill branch and Maple Acre Library branches remain available for contactless curbside pickup of library materials and take-home craft kits and pickup of materials sent to the library for printing/copying/scanning. Additionally, library staff continue to assist residents in pre-registration for vaccines via telephone. You can contact the library at (905) 892-6443.

Parks, playgrounds and trails are open; however, these areas are not cleaned or sanitized. It is encouraged that thorough hand washing and sanitizing occur after the park or playground equipment is used.

Some key changes during the lockdown:

• Prohibiting indoor organized public events and social gatherings and limiting the capacity for outdoor organized public events or social gatherings to a 5-person maximum, except for gatherings with members of the same household (the people you live with) or gatherings of members of one household and one other person from another household who lives alone.
• Restricting in-person shopping in all retail settings, including a 50 per cent capacity limit for supermarkets, grocery stores, convenience stores, indoor farmers’ markets, other stores that primarily sell food and pharmacies, and 25 per cent for all other retail including big box stores, along with other public health and workplace safety measures;
• Prohibiting personal care services;
• Prohibiting indoor and outdoor dining. Restaurants, bars and other food or drink establishments will be permitted to operate by take-out, drive-through, and delivery only;
• Prohibiting the use of facilities for indoor or outdoor sports and recreational fitness (e.g., gyms) with very limited exceptions;
• Requiring day camps to close; and,
• Limiting capacity at weddings, funerals, and religious services, rites or ceremonies to 15 per cent occupancy per room indoors, and to the number of individuals that can maintain two metres of physical distance outdoors. This does not include social gatherings associated with these services such as receptions, which are not permitted indoors and are limited to five people outdoors.

For more information on the Town’s award-winning response to COVID-19, visit: www.pelham.ca/covid19.