Whereas, on September 2nd local pandemic protocols stipulated that no more than 25 persons at a time should gather together in one building for any event, an adjustment was made on September 9th to specify that in order to observe a safe physical distancing mandate, 30 square feet of space in a building should be occupied by no more than one person.
This requirement might be somewhat more difficult to manage than the former 25-persons-per-building limit, but it does make more sense, from a logical standpoint, since buildings come in various sizes.
With the revision of the physical distancing regulation, owners and property operators must measure their buildings in order to calculate the number of persons that can be safely accommodated without breaching local pandemic protocols. The mandate, which was initiated by Executive Council, was emphasised by the Commissioner of Police, Mr. David Lynch, during the Government’s Press conference on Monday, September 13th:
The Commissioner stated: “At the moment owners of buildings will have to work out how many people their building can hold if each person was allotted 30 square feet of space. ExCo has listened to the public, and it has removed the requirement of the arbitrary number of 25 persons per building. The regulations for safe space have been redefined.”
The Premier confirmed the Commissioner’s statements by alluding to the fact that building owners or operators are indeed responsible for working out how many persons their buildings can hold with each person occupying 30 square feet.
The Commissioner emphasised the importance of the distancing measures : “In addition,” he stressed, “I want to ask the owners of premises to take this regulation very seriously. The space inside the building must be measured so that each person occupying the building can have a space of 30 square feet for safe physical distancing.”
“The intent behind all this is to keep people safe,” he said. “We will be coming around to ask establishment owners how many people they can have in their buildings. [If anyone impinges this mandate] we will do the assessments, and from there we will decide, with the AGs Chamber, whether we will prosecute. We are therefore asking for sensible management of the space inside buildings at this time.”
The Commissioner continued: “In all of the Press Conferences I have done since I have been here, people [for the most part] have been really good at complying with regulations because they know that they must keep their communities safe. So I am asking all establishment operators to take a slight time out of their day to calculate how many people they can have in their buildings at any given time.”
He went on: “We will adapt to the requirements, set by ExCo, which are based on health assessments. And if we need to take more enforcement, then we will. The intent is about keeping people safe, rather than prosecuting people.”
The Commissioner commended the public for its cooperation but, at the same time, he sounded a warning, saying: “So far, a lot of people have been really compliant and very sensible. I thank the public for that kind of cooperation. But as times get tougher, the enforcement will get more rigid.”
