The owners of The Works Craft Burgers & Beer in London are vowing to ramp up enforcement of Ontario's vaccine passport mandate after facing backlash for hosting prominent anti-vaxxer Chris Saccoccia and his supporters this past weekend.
Saccoccia, also known as Chris Sky, posted a video on Twitter on Sept. 26 in which he boasted about dining indoors, maskless, without providing proof of vaccination along with a large group of his supporters after holding an anti-vaccine passport rally nearby.
"When Chris Sky comes to your town, the restaurant will not enforce the vaccine passport," he says in the video from inside the restaurant. "Look at this, look at how many people we have at the table, we have the whoooole restaurant."
Vax pass? Not when I come to town
— Chris Sky🧱 (@chrissaccoccia1) September 26, 2021
RETWEET FOR FREEDOM pic.twitter.com/DlllmqBLI5
The video, which has more than 37,000 views as of Wednesday morning, prompted the City of London to launch an investigation into the matter.
While the restaurant's owners, Kris Hunt and Ian Roden (a failed Toronto PPC Candidate), initially refrained from commenting on the situation, they put out a statement on Instagram Tuesday night committing to enforcing the rules from here on out.
"We want to ensure that while we respect everyone's opinion, we do not support any behaviour that is aimed at causing disruption or that puts anyone at risk," reads the statement. "We had no knowledge of the anti-vaccine rally taking place in London or that the organizers would be visiting our restaurant afterwards."
"We have worked with London Middlesex Public Health to clarify all the standards to ensure that these are all being followed correctly," it continues. "We have also retrained all our staff to ensure that every guest coming into the restaurant will be properly screened using the Ontario government vaccine certification process."
Several comments on the post indicate that some Ontarians are sceptical about the promise, however, especially considering Roden has openly stated that he is against vaccine passport mandates and other COVID-19 public health restrictions.
But fines for non-compliance with the new Ontario regulation, which came into effect last week, are hefty, so it's surely in all business owners' best interest to get on board.
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