THE TOWN OF THE BLUE MOUNTAINS—The Lubertowicz family came from their home in Burlington to the Blue Mountain Resort this weekend, figuring skiing would be a “safe” way to enjoy an outdoor activity amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I was listening to an interview with a doctor who was encouraging people to go out for a walk, walk the dog, go skiing, so I was kind of surprised that they shut down the hills,” said Greg Lubertowicz, sharing poutine on an outdoor patio in the resort’s village with his wife Kathy and two disappointed daughters, Natalia, 10, and Ola, 7.

With March break — typically one of the busiest weeks on the winter calendar — underway, the resort was still open for business on Saturday. Guests with bookings were told that precautionary measures to prevent the virus from spreading were being taken, but that the chairlifts would continue to run.

But by Saturday evening, Alterra Mountain Company, which owns Blue Mountain Resort and 14 other North American ski resorts, announced it would be suspending operations at all of its resorts starting Sunday. Blue Mountain Resort, Ontario’s biggest downhill ski operator, is about a two-hour drive northwest of Toronto.

“After careful thought and deliberation of our duty … and in what we believe is in the best interest of our guests, employees and local communities, Blue Mountain will suspend operations starting the morning of Sunday, March 15, until further notice,” said a message posted on the resort’s website. All lift operations, food and beverage, retail and rental services were to be closed.

On a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon, the Blue Mountain’s main “village” was nearly empty, though privately owned shops and restaurants had their doors open. A man walking across the square carrying pair of skis said he had just lost his job in the equipment-rental shop — but that wasn’t what was bothering him.

“I only had another week of work — I’m just disappointed I can’t go skiing today,” he said, declining to give his name. The people who will really suffer from the closure, he said, are the “secondary industries” and their employees, nodding toward the nearby empty patio at Rusty’s, where a bartender wearing pink earmuffs stood with nothing to do.

Tara Lovell, public relations manager at Blue Mountain, acknowledged March break is typically one of the busiest weeks there, and the resort’s more than 1,000 accommodation units were expected to be filled to near-capacity. There will be job losses, but many seasonal staff members were only a week away from seeing their jobs end, she said.

Blue Mountain has a core, full-time staff of about 700, and up to 2,000 in peak times. “This time of year we would have been tapering staff seasonally away,” said Lovell. Officials initially planned to “adapt” some events planned for this week that might have exceeded the public-health guideline limit of 250 people — for example, by changing live, stationary concerts “to having travelling musicians through the village, to just discourage large crowds.”

But it was decided that to “help flatten the curve” a “very hard decision” had to be made, as “we know ski resorts across North American and the world are doing,” she told the Star.

As of Sunday, the resort’s hotels were still open.

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Refunds are being given to anyone cancelling accommodations, provided it’s done at least 24 hours before scheduled arrival. As well, refunds will be offered for anyone who bought lift tickets or rentals online, said Lovell, “but we are asking for patience while we process those as diligently as possible.”

Blue Mountain usually targets Easter as the end of its winter season, “so this would be earlier than when we typically close. But we’ve had 112 days because we had the earliest opening on record so interestingly ... it’s about an average year.”

The private ski clubs near Blue Mountain lining the Niagara Escarpment were all open for business Saturday and Sunday before announcing early closings. Before that, one of the private club websites was asking its members to “reduce the number of passengers on any chairlift to half its capacity and space themselves,” as well as to limit time in the clubhouse.