Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - March 11, 2022, Winnipeg, Manitoba A9FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2022 C M Y K PAGE A9 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM NEWS I MANITOBA **O.A.C. $99 administrative fee applies. CRAZY SAVINGS! UNBEL IEVABLE MARKDOWNS PR ICED TO MOVE ! HOT BUY RECLINERS! WHILE SUPPLIES LAST! SOFA MARKDOWNS! LIMITED QUANTITIES! ONE YEAR NO INTEREST FINANCING * P L U S EVERYTHING PRICED TO SELL ! C L O S E O U T S C A N C E L L E D O R D E R S O V E R S T O C K S ONE-OF-A-K INDS F L O O R S A M P L E S D I S C O N T I N U E D I T E M S * HURRY IN & SAVE! UP TO 50%OFF P O W E R U P G R A D E S AVA IL A B L E O N S EL ECT R EC L IN I N G ST Y L ES Free in-home design. Schedule your free design consultation today. Experience the comfort La-Z-Boy Home Theatre Expedited delivery on in-stock items. 204-783-8500 1425 Ellice Avenue Monday to Friday 10am – 7pm Saturday 10am – 6pm Sunday 11am – 5pm www.la-z-boy.com/winnipeg EMERSON — The Grey Goose vodka bottles have sat un-sold in the duty free store for two years.A full table of hard liquor was among the retail items greeting federal Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino as he met local business owners and the Emerson-Franklin reeve Thursday afternoon. Simon Resch, the shop’s co-owner, was ready to tell Mendi- cino how two years of the COVID-19 pandemic — and a re- cent protest blocking cross-country trade — has decimated his sales. He’s calling for change, including to Ottawa’s travel requirements. Emerson was among Mendicino’s tour stops. He was speak- ing to Canadian businesses near the U.S. border about their struggles. “The land border duty free industry has not been able to pivot the way other industries have,” Resch said. Since March 2020, the average duty free shop has lost 90 to 95 per cent of its revenue, according to Barbara Barrett, Frontier Duty Free Association executive director. The sites are federally regulated and must sell to people leaving the country, she said. Resch’s warehouse is stocked with alcohol he hasn’t been able to shelve for years — nobody’s buying the products out front, he said. Beer, chocolates and beauty products have ex- pired and been discarded. The requirement to provide a negative COVID-19 antigen test when entering Canada, taken within 24 hours of cross- ing, has kept people from crossing the local land border, Resch said. “I think (the requirement has) actually become more cumbersome and more restrictive,” he said, noting the turn- around time to get a test is faster than the 72 hours granted for a polymerase chain reaction test, which was previously mandatory for crossing. Manitoba has dropped proof of vaccination requirements, and the province’s mask mandate is set to expire March 15. Manitobans will now also no longer need to isolate after test- ing positive, as of that date. “If we don’t need a test to go to a restaurant in Winnipeg, I don’t need a test to go to Pembina (N.D.), get the mail and come home,” Resch said. “I’m very frustrated.” Part of his shop was under renovation Thursday. It will be- come a restaurant with wood-fired stoves — a new source of revenue. Resch invited Mendicino to cook the first pizza when the site opens. The federal minister did not say when the travel test re- quirement will end. But, Ottawa has eased procedures “at the right time,” he said. “As case counts have come down, as more people get vac- cinated — and we shouldn’t gloss over that fact — we are in a position to ease,” Mendicino said. “Hopefully, we’ll have more to say, but in the meantime, we’re going to keep lines of communication open (with border businesses).” Canadians will largely stay away from the U.S. border until tests are scrapped, Barrett said. “A lot of the time, people are like, ‘It’s too confusing, I’m not going to bother.’” Duty free stores saw an uptick in traffic pre-Omicron vari- ant, when the government dropped the negative PCR test re- quirement for trips under 72 hours, Barrett said. “We were like, ‘OK, we’re going to get on the road to recov- ery,’” she said. “(Then) they put it back on again when Omi- cron hit. You could just see the tap get turned off.” She said the association understands restrictions are im- portant to curb the spread of COVID-19. Shops have listened, while throwing out “hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of product.” “I’m getting calls every day (from business owners say- ing): ‘I don’t know how I’m going to pay my heating bill; we may lose our house,’” Barrett said. Mask and proof of vaccination mandates ending in certain provinces should signal an end to the travel test requirement, she added. On Thursday, Emerson representatives proposed a recov- ery fund for duty free stores. “I am going to take that proposal back to my colleagues,” Mendicino said. “I know that it’s been a really tough go.” Emerson-Franklin Reeve Dave Carlson noted the roughly $70-million per day trade that was halted while anti-mandate protesters recently blocked the land border. “I think COVID has really underlined how important our borders are, and our crossings,” Carlson said. The federal government enacted the Emergencies Act, re- sulting in a clear-out of border occupations Feb. 16. Resch said he appreciated the move — the protesters blocked all potential customers, and he wouldn’t be able to keep his heat on. “We couldn’t trade at all,” agreed Jeff French, co-owner of Runnin’ Red Transport. His company was behind on 10 days’ worth of orders, be- tween the protest and winter storms, he said. Elsewhere, the Winnipeg Airports Authority also called for changes to travel mandates. “Testing remains an impediment to getting people moving again,” Tyler MacAfee, WAA vice-president of communica- tions, wrote in an email. “Restrictions were important in the early days of the pan- demic as we developed an understanding of how the virus was transmitted,” he wrote. “However, we have now reached a point where restrictions are being lifted across the country and we think it is time for the federal government to do the same for travel.” gabrielle.piche@freepress.mb.ca Border stores press Ottawa to ease travel rules GABRIELLE PICHÉ MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Emerson Duty Free co-owner Simon Resch (left) gives federal Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino a tour of his store on Thursday. Duty free decimated by pandemic ‘If we don’t need a test to go to a restaurant in Winnipeg, I don’t need a test to go to Pembina (N.D.), get the mail and come home. I’m very frustrated’ — Simon Resch, Emerson duty free shop owner A_09_Mar-11-22_FP_01.indd 9 2022-03-10 9:05 PM ;