It sounds like the plot of Footloose: you can enter the venue, but you can't mingle and you can't dance. That's the reality Quebec's reception hall owners are contending with, even as the government relaxes occupancy rules today, increasing the number of people allowed in indoor venues from 50 to 250. "We're still not going to be busy at all," said Pat Garippo, one of the owners of Le Châteaubriand, a reception hall in Montreal's east end. Reception halls and sugar shacks have largely been forgotten in the economic recovery, said Gopinath Jeyabalaratnam, a senior policy analyst at the CFIB. Paiement said he can make it to 2021, provided there are changes — like a vaccine — that will allow events to happen.

Source: CBC News August 03, 2020 11:22 UTC