Montreal City Weblog

Kate 20:30 on 2021-01-07 Permalink Reply  

• Faiz imam 02:09 on 2021-01-08 Permalink

  Is this the case for gas stations as well? are the 25h ones closed too?

• GC 09:20 on 2021-01-08 Permalink

  It does suck for them, but if we are all following the curfew then they wouldn’t have any business anyway? I suppose they could miss out on some by people who have legitimate reasons to be out–those working night shifts, etc.

• Kate 10:30 on 2021-01-08 Permalink

  I’ll see if I can find chapter and verse on this, but I saw something about the deps connected to gas stations being allowed to stay open. If so, that’s unfair to the usually family-run deps in nearby neighbourhoods, but I also see the argument that you have to have something available for the folks working evening or night shift.

• GC 11:53 on 2021-01-08 Permalink

  Yeah, it seems like the gas station ones are more likely to be corporate ones, so that’s does seem like an unfair punishment to the neighbourhood ones. You definitely need fuel available for those working at night…but are the food and drinks “essential”? Maybe, if it’s the only place to get them at that hour?

• Kate 12:03 on 2021-01-08 Permalink

  This CBC piece:

  All grocery stores and dépanneurs are required to close by 7:30 p.m.

  One exception will be made for pharmacies, gas stations and dépanneurs attached to gas stations, which may stay open past 7:30 p.m.

  If I owned a regular dépanneur I’d be pretty annoyed by this. Do those gas station deps sell beer and cigarettes? They shouldn’t be allowed to – they should be restricted to a few items, maybe milk and bread.

• Max 12:04 on 2021-01-08 Permalink

  CTV also has a long list of exceptions to the curfew:

  https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/here-s-what-you-can-and-cannot-do-under-quebec-s-covid-19-curfew-1.5257126

• Kate 12:37 on 2021-01-08 Permalink

  Max, reading the CBC piece again I am struck by how out of touch Geneviève Guilbault is with the city:

  On Thursday, Public Security Minister Geneviève Guilbault said that while people are allowed to be outside in their own backyards after curfew, no circulating in public will be allowed, even on foot.

  Has she any idea how many Montrealers have no back yard?!

• DeWolf 12:50 on 2021-01-08 Permalink

  Guilbault grew up in Greenfield Park, went to Laval University and has lived in Quebec City since then, so I don’t think she has any sense of how most people in Montreal actually live.

  (Quebec City also has a lot of people living in areas with no backyards, but something tells me a CAQiste hasn’t spent much time in St-Sauveur, Limoilou or St-Jean-Baptiste.)

• Blork 12:56 on 2021-01-08 Permalink

  I don’t think that backyard thing is out of touch. While many apartment-dwellers don’t have a back yard, most triplexes do, and once you get outside of the center there are many single-family houses (I don’t mean the far burbs; Lasalle, St-Henri, Petite-Patrie, etc. )

  So there are literally hundreds of thousands of Montrealers who DO have a back yard, and it’s perfectly legitimate to let them know that the curfew does not apply to those yards. IOW, you don’t have to stay IN YOUR HOUSE, you just have to stay ON YOUR PROPERTY.

  Just because a lot of people don’t own property doesn’t nullify the question.

• Blork 13:00 on 2021-01-08 Permalink

  … it’s a bit like saying “Why are they talking about schools? Don’t they know how many Montrealers don’t have children?”

• Blork 13:08 on 2021-01-08 Permalink

  To be clear: I think Kate and DeWolf are interpreting that backyard statement as her saying “the curfew is not a problem because you can just hang out in your back yard” but I’m guessing she’s simply answering the question “does the curfew apply to my back yard?”

• DeWolf 13:13 on 2021-01-08 Permalink

  Yes, Blork, but she also made a point of saying you couldn’t step onto the sidewalk outside your home for a smoke break. It echoes the kind of hand-wavey sentiment we’ve heard all year from people living in single-family houses with lots of outdoor space. “Why are the parks so busy? People should just stay in their backyards.”

  Only 32% of people in the whole of Greater Montreal live in single-family houses, according to the 2016 census. That includes all the suburbs. That is indeed hundreds of thousands of people, but there are millions more whose only private access to the outdoors is a small balcony – if that.

• DeWolf 13:16 on 2021-01-08 Permalink

  I should add that if it’s illegal to take a smoke break on the sidewalk, I expect to see the SPVM hassling a lot of people standing outside their balcony-less apartment buildings in neighbourhoods like Park Ex.

• Mark Côté 13:31 on 2021-01-08 Permalink

  Reminds me of the provincial pot laws that allowed landlords to unilaterally add smoking bans to leases but prevented smoking in public places. A newly legalized substance that hundreds of thousands of renters were effectively prohibited from using (notwithstanding the government saying “they can just use edibles”, which is a rather different experience from smoking that just added to the perception of how out of touch they are).

• GC 13:53 on 2021-01-08 Permalink

  Keeping pharmacies open does make sense to me, but they should probably also be restricted from selling the full range of groceries during the curfew hours.

  Maybe not to best time to be the bitter non-smoker, but people already smoked plenty of places they weren’t supposed to–like right in front of public entrances. I’m not expecting much change in enforcement there. Though I will concede it’s a major hassle for those who don’t have a yard/balcony, however, and can’t/won’t smoke indoors, for whatever reason. And, as others have mentioned, it’s an extra difficult time to consider quitting…

• Kate 15:13 on 2021-01-08 Permalink

  Blork, I have a small back yard, but that’s only because I was lucky enough to rent a ground-floor flat. The people living on the two floors above me have no access to it, although they do have balconies. That’s the usual rule, I believe. So the rows and rows of triplexes may mostly have yards (some don’t) but not everyone living in them has one.

  I was struck just now by what Pharmaprix can sell and what it can’t. It can’t sell light bulbs. Surely if you have a lightbulb burn out, it’s not frivolous to want to buy a replacement?

• Blork 16:23 on 2021-01-08 Permalink

  My only point is that telling people the curfew doesn’t apply to backyards is a legitimate comment, given there are plenty of people with back yards and many of them may have been wondering. The fact that many other people don’t have back yards doesn’t disqualify the legitimacy of the question, in the same way that answering questions about schools is legit even if many people don’t have kids.

• Ephraim 18:09 on 2021-01-08 Permalink

  I can’t wait for them to have to clear snow after 9PM and no one can go outside to move their cars 😀

• Michael Black 18:24 on 2021-01-08 Permalink

  Always see the best in everything.

• Kate 12:02 on 2021-01-09 Permalink

  Also – shoe dropping – how many people hang out in their back yards in January?