After four months of being closed and with restrictions now in place on capacity, nothing is certain about the future of Barrie's Royal Canadian Legion branch.
The St. Vincent Street facility shut its doors March 17 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and reopened on July 17.
Although they've been open again for just under a week, local legion officials are hoping to get the word out that they're prepared for anyone who wants to safely go indoors.
“We can survive another couple of months, if we’re very careful,” Barrie legion president Marcel Vigneault told BarrieToday. “After that, if it doesn't improve, even just to get 50 per cent of what we did to get us rolling, I don’t know.
"It doesn’t mean we’re going to go under, but we start cutting things even more, that’s for sure," he added.
During the closure, a few of the executive members had been working to clean up and do a few things to keep the building looking good, Vigneault said.
“This is an old building and we needed to add some things to make it operate well when we could have guests," he said. "We’ve added plexiglass at the bar and at the table at the entrance. We did a good, deep cleaning and some other odds and ends."
Many businesses and organizations have received help from the government to keep afloat financially during COVID-19, but Vigneault said the legion has received only a little help so far.
“Let's say it's $55 to renew a membership, a little less for some older people; only $11 stays here and the rest goes to the province,” Vigneault said. “After COVID happened, (the provincial government) gave us $11 per active member, which came to around $7,000. That is all the help we have received from anybody.”
Vigneault says it costs between $5,000 and $6,000 a month to maintain the building.
The biggest source of financial help for any legion is the annual poppy drive. Every year, approximately 230,000 poppies are sent to schools in Barrie, plus between 150 and 200 other locations in the city.
With social distancing and people wary of sharing items, Vigneault isn’t sure what will happen to the 2020 poppy campaign.
“The period for the drive is from Oct. 15 to Nov. 11, but this year I don’t know yet if we’ll be able to do it,” he said. “Are we going to be able to put somebody in front of the bank or grocery store? Will people want to handle money and will people be able to give like they have in the past with so many jobs lost?
"It's like a big, black cloud hanging over us and we don’t know what is happening.”
Vigneault says he's also worried about what the Remembrance Day ceremony at the downtown cenotaph looks like.
“I don’t know if we’re going to be allowed to have a parade downtown. How can everyone stand side-by-side and how would we fit all the hundreds of people who come every year? We can’t, not if things are the same,” he said.
The Stage 3 restrictions put in place by the provincial government only allow for 50 people to gather indoors, which is impacting one of the biggest sources of income for the legion, Vigneault says.
“We host events all year round: Wedding receptions, funeral receptions, birthdays, you name it,” he said. “We obviously will follow the rules, but it is definitely hurting us and we are going to have to think about some other ways to bring in money."
Stage 3 allows for indoor dining, but Vigneault says that, so far, no one is coming in to drink and socialize.
“Last night, we closed at 8 p.m. because there wasn’t a single soul in here. People are still afraid, I think, to go out and I understand. We obviously have an older crowd and we don’t want anyone to get sick, not at any cost,” Vigneault said.
Vigneault says he hopes people start to feel comfortable about coming back.
“I think the main thing is to let people know this isn’t just for military people and families," he said. "People still don't realize that anyone can come in."
