BC restaurants free to do away with vaccine passport system soon

Apr 5 2022, 8:38 pm

Last month, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry announced that the vaccine passport system in BC was set to expire on April 8.

Now, just days ahead of that date, the province confirmed it would move forward with the plan to ease this restriction, despite COVID-19 cases rapidly rising across Canada.

The BC Vaccine Card requirement being scrapped later this week means you’ll be able to enter certain places, such as restaurants that choose to do away with the system, without needing to show your QR code and picture ID.

It’s important to note that individual businesses and event organizers can choose to continue requiring proof of vaccination for entry.

Dr. Henry made the announcement, alongside Health Minister Adrian Dix, at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon.

The pair also outlined how businesses in BC will also be transitioning away from COVID-19 safety plans to communicable disease plans.

restaurant gift card

Robert Way/Shutterstock

Last month, Daily Hive spoke with leaders in BC’s restaurant and bar industry to see how they were feeling about the mask mandate and BC Vaccine Card requirement lifting.

“It’s huge. Unbelievably huge,” Jeff Guignard, executive director of the Alliance of Beverage Licensees, told Daily Hive. “It feels like we’re finally getting back to normal.”

According to Guignard, at the time of our interview, the majority of businesses in Vancouver’s hospitality industry had either been losing money, barely breaking even, or had a profit margin of less than 2% for the last two years.

In addition, he said 15% of hospitality businesses didn’t make it through to the pandemic’s two-year anniversary.

“We were hit first; we were hit hardest, and we’ve always known we’ll be among the last to recover,” he said. “But with finally removing these last restrictions, it’s a mental shift. Everyone feels like we’re out of this.”

Ian Tostenson, president and CEO of the BC Restaurant and Food Services Association, said removing the mask mandate in March was welcome news for many restaurant workers.

“We can show our smiling faces of hospitality, and we can express those emotions we couldn’t with a mask on,” he said.

Tostenson thought a month-long lag between dropping masks and then allowing unvaccinated patrons once again was a smart move by the province to accommodate customers’ comfort levels.

“As an industry, we really did agree that vaccination cards would be a good way to motivate people to get vaccinated,” Tostenson said. “I think we were responsible for getting a lot of people vaccinated because they wanted to keep going to restaurants.”

The BC Vaccine Card will no longer be required as of April 8 at 12:01 am.

With files from Megan Devlin and Amir Ali

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