An order issued by the Eastern Ontario Health Unit (EOHU) that took effect at 11:59 p.m. on April 3 has resulted in two local business owners facing a $880 fine.

Travis and Natasha MacMillan, owners of MacMillan’s Milk convenience store on Cumberland Street, received the fine on April 5 from a Cornwall Police Service officer.

“It was right out of the blue,” Travis told the Standard-Freeholder, from the married couple’s apartment on the second storey of the business. “There were no prior warnings before we received it.”

The order called for big-box stores, discount stores, grocery stores and convenience stores to implement what it called safety measures to stop the spread of COVID-19. These included, among others, the assigning an employee for crowd control and to monitor the parking lot as well as installing taped arrows on the ground, providing hand sanitizer to customers, displaying signage, and installing plexiglass dividers for cashiers.

The MacMillans stressed they would have gladly complied with the order — if they had been made aware of it.

“We were completely unaware of these guidelines,” said Travis. “There’s definitely a lack of communication. I’m so busy running my business every day and my children aren’t in school, which takes my wife away from the business. I have 100 per cent weight on my shoulders. I don’t have time to keep going to the computer and looking at the Eastern Ontario Health Unit’s website.”

According to the MacMillans, the officer appeared at the convenience store on the afternoon of April 5 and told them they weren’t in compliance of the new order.

“He handed me this form,” Travis said, producing the EOHU’s order. “We read it over together. Immediately I started putting this into place — the plexiglass and the lines on the floor.

“Am I guilty? Yes. But the information wasn’t provided to me.”

The officer, after having taken photographs of the store, told the owners that he would be reviewing the matter with the EOHU and would get back to them to let them know if whether a fine would be issued.

“Within one hour he came back in the store and presented me with this fine of $880,” Travis said.

MacMillan said the family was considering its options on how to proceed, but hasn’t yet decided to contest the fine.

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EOHU medical officer of health and chief executive officer Dr. Paul Roumeliotis declined to comment on the specific incident. He did say it isn’t his health unit’s end-goal to issue such fines.

“We usually take an approach where we would essentially work with them what they can do and give them a bit of a warning,” he told the Standard-Freeholder.”The general approach is that we call them (business owner). We’ve been calling a lot of the retailers on a regular basis. Some of the smaller retailers may not have the capacity to do some of the procedures. At that point we’ll work with them to see what is logical.

“Our end result is not to fine people. It’s to ensure that we put the measures in place so customers and staff members are safe. Fining shouldn’t be our first resort.”

Travis MacMillan said he feels the whole process is unfairly targeting smaller businesses. According to him, on the very same day he was fined, his mother visited Walmart and was surprised to see the cashier who served her was not protected by plexiglass.

“They told me they just went through cash 21 and that they had no plexiglass up, that they were face-to-face with the cashier,” he said. I find that we’re treated very unfairly. Why are we the only one targeted and fined? We go out of our way to help people that come to our store.”

MacMillan said he was confident the officer visited his business following a public complaint.

“Our business is sustaining itself but we’re having a very difficult time,” he said. “We’ve gone through some legal issues and we’ve just recently had a break-in. That was quite a bit of stuff that was removed off of our shelves… In the past six months we’re out about $15,000 because of stuff like that. There’s also the constant daily theft, chocolate bars and such. This $880 is definitely affecting us.

“In all fairness, we put ourselves at risk for our customers that come in our business and this is how we’re treated,” said Travis. “Had I received the EOHU’s information we would have been in compliance immediately. We take this extremely seriously.”

fracine@postmedia.com

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