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“(Sunday) was the worst,” he said. “We’re in our sixties, so we’re in the group that’s not supposed to stay close to anybody, so we’ve been doing our best to do that.”

Instead, he drove north across the river, leaving his own neighbourhood to take a stroll in Tuxedo. There he found much more space to keep his distance, and he said the people who lived there were doing the same.

“People were in their front yards, staying six feet apart, having a beer and a sandwich — it was pretty nice,” Trow said.

In Sunnyside, Tamara Lee said she watched the number of people in her neighbourhood explode on Sunday.

“It was a madhouse,” she said. “We waited because we knew that everybody and their dog would be out there in the morning. We didn’t go out until about 4, and it was still a madhouse.”

Photo by Darren Makowichuk / DARREN MAKOWICHUK/Postmedia

Lee lives near the stretch of Memorial Drive that the city has closed to make sure pedestrians and cyclists can move through the area while keeping their distance. It’s been helpful for the people who live in the area, she said, but the Sunday crowds were a different story.

“We saw tons of people gathered who obviously were not from the same household,” she said. “Obviously people are just dying to get together. I totally understand, but I was surprised by the number of people who really don’t seem to care.”

The city logged 950 calls related to COVID-19 between April 10 and 17, and “social distancing concerns” came up most frequently, with 184 calls. The next most common inquiry was about the city’s property tax and utility deferral program, at 125 calls. Data from this past weekend has yet to be made available.