The Ontario government has extended all emergency orders under the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act until Tuesday, June 9th.

The province issued a media release announcing the extension on Wednesday (May 27).

“We are extending these emergency orders to protect the health and safety of all individuals and families as we begin to gradually and safely reopen our province,” Premier Doug Ford says.

The emergency orders, which were set to expire this Friday (May 29), include the closure of outdoor playgrounds, play structures and equipment, public swimming pools, and outdoor water facilities, as well as bars and restaurants except for takeout and delivery.

The government is also continuing the restriction on social gatherings of no more than five people, and staff redeployment rules remain in place for long-term care homes and congregate settings like retirement homes and women’s shelters.

The move was prompted by recent increases in the number of positive COVID-19 cases in Ontario and the large group gathering at Trinity Bellwoods Park in Toronto this past weekend. On Monday (May 25) at a media briefing, health minister Christine Elliott said plans to expand the social gathering restriction to more than five people would be delayed.

“It is something that will be coming forward, but it has been pushed back a little bit,” Elliott said.

She added that the province’s chief medical officer of health Dr. David Williams is reluctant to loosen the social gathering restriction, because of concerns about people gathering in large groups during the summer-like weather.

The Ontario government first declared a provincial emergency on March 17, 2020 under the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act. This declaration of emergency was most recently extended on May 12, 2020 and is currently in effect until June 2, 2020.

Here’s a list of all the emergency orders that have been extended until June 9, 2020:

• Closure of Establishments
• Prohibiting Organized Public Events, Certain Gatherings
• Work Deployment Measures for Health Care Workers
• Drinking Water Systems and Sewage Works
• Electronic Service
• Work Deployment Measures in Long-Term Care Homes
• Closure of Places of Non-Essential Businesses
• Traffic Management
• Streamlining Requirements for Long-Term Care Homes
• Prohibition on Certain Persons Charging Unconscionable Prices for Necessary Goods 
• Closure of Outdoor Recreational Amenities
• Enforcement of Orders
• Work Deployment Measures for Boards of Health
• Work Deployment Measures in Retirement Homes
• Access to COVID-19 Status Information by Specified Persons
• Service Agencies Providing Services and Supports to Adults with Developmental Disabilities
• Pickup and Delivery of Cannabis
• Signatures in Wills and Powers of Attorney
• Use of Force and Firearms in Policing Services
• Child Care Fees
• Agreements Between Health Service Providers and Retirement Homes
• Temporary Health or Residential Facilities
• Closure of Public Lands for Recreational Camping
• Work Deployment Measures for Service Agencies Providing Violence Against Women Residential Services and Crisis Line Services
• Limiting Work to a Single Long-Term Care Home
• Work Deployment Measures for District Social Services Administration Boards
• Deployment of Employees of Service Provider Organizations
• Work Deployment Measures for Municipalities
• Limiting Work to a Single Retirement Home
• Work Deployment Measures for Mental Health and Addictions Agencies
• Congregate Care Settings
• Access to Personal Health Information by Means of the Electronic Health Record
• Certain Persons Enabled to Issue Medical Certificates of Death
• Hospital Credentialing Processes
• Education Sector
• Management of Long-term Care Homes in Outbreak
• Electricity Price for RPP Consumers (until May 31, 2020)
• Global Adjustment for Market Participants and Consumers (until June 1, 2020)

Like any prudent business owner, Lindsay Drive-In owner Danny Zita has adopted preparing for a rainy day as a very sound business practice.

Still, not unlike millions of business owners around the globe, Zita didn’t see this coming — this being the COVID-19 pandemic that, since mid March, has closed stores, workplaces, and venues in a concerted bid to flatten the curve and get us back to some level of pre-outbreak normalcy.

For Zita, what that has looked like is a closed sign on the gate of the Lindsay Drive-In (229 Pigeon Lake Road, Lindsay, 705-340-6666) — a business that normally, with the warmer weather, would be thriving this time of year.

And while that is concerning enough for him and his wife Barb, the fact that he has a solid plan to reopen now that is being disallowed by public health officials is creating a level of frustration he struggles to contain.

“What’s really frustrating is the fact that drive-ins all over the world are open except in Ontario — that’s baffling to me,” says Mr. Zita, noting not only are drive-ins opening again but are doing really well.

According to a May 23rd CBC story by Jessica Wong, reopened established drive-ins as well as new pop-up versions are seeing resurging numbers as self-isolating film lovers get in line for their fix.

“Drive-ins are being overwhelmed with many at the point where you have to buy a ticket online in advance or you’re not getting in, especially with the fact that they’re operating at half capacity,” says Zita, terming the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic “bad timing” as far as his plans for his drive-in are concerned.

“We had high schools approaching us about wanting to hold graduation ceremonies here,” Zita adds. “Weddings too. I can’t even begin to think of how many people have asked us to do some sort of concert. It’s frustrating for them. They’re just itching to do what they love but have no place to do it.”

“We’re happy the golf courses and the marinas are open. We’re thrilled for them and I mean that sincerely. But we thought we would have been lumped into that category also, being seasonal and being able to accommodate, without question and with ease, self-distancing measures. But we’ve been excluded and that’s disappointing.”

In presenting his case to public health officials with the Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit, Zita explained the drive-in would operate at half capacity, allowing space for 200 vehicles as opposed to 400, leaving some 10 feet of space between each vehicle. Strangely enough, the drive-in’s concession building has been green lit to open.

“We’ve put everything in place to allow us to open,” says Zita. “This COVID thing didn’t just happen yesterday. Along with everybody else, we’ve been thinking about how we can best protect our staff and patrons. We’ve reached out to other drive-ins that are open and learned what they’ve done, which seems to work fine. The snack bar isn’t close to being an issue.”

“A couple of weeks ago we wanted to start up our projectors at 9 p.m. for just half an hour to give kids some entertainment — to play some Looney Tune cartoons and, of course, do that free of charge just to get families out to enjoy themselves. We were told (by the health unit) it’s okay to open up our snack bar, but if we turn those projectors on we will be fined.”

The fact that Zita has had to layoff his nine employees — “They have been so loyal to us” — is only adding to his frustration.

It was some six years ago that the Zitas purchased the Lindsay Drive-in. Danny Zita brought to the business decades working in the industry in various capacities.

“When we took it over, it was a little bit of a going concern,” he recalls.

“We owned another drive-in near Sauble Beach. When the owner approached us to purchase the one here (in Lindsay), we knew it was a little rough but we were able to see through all that with a little bit of TLC. The support every year since has been phenomenal. We are overjoyed with how kind our patrons have been to us.”

Now Zita wants nothing more to serve those patrons. But he remains doubtful that will happen any time soon, based on the concerns expressed by Premier Doug Ford and Ontario public health officials regarding the number of positive cases holding steady as opposed to declining.

“I sympathize with how difficult a call this must be on the government’s part but, at the same time, smaller towns like Lindsay, like Peterborough, like Fenelon Falls and Haliburton, are paying the price for the numbers that are coming out of Toronto,” says Zita, adding it’s not his intention to press public health any further for the go-ahead to reopen.

“Some of the other drive-in owners are doing that (lobbying) but, as far as I’m concerned, they’ve heard us and they know we’re here. At this point, rather than fight them, I would rather patiently sit back. They’re under enormous pressure too. I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes. I don’t want to be the angry guy. We are going to get open at some point.”

Much has changed over the past few months, but what hasn’t changed for the Zitas is their attraction to what got them into the drive-in business in the first place.

“The romance of the drive-in on a beautiful summer night … you can’t beat that,” Zita says.

“We are going to reopen at some point and it’s going to be just wonderful. To go up in the projection room and look out throughout the windows and see cars out there — we long for that sight.”

Mr. Zita adds he’s still planning to build a permanent stage at his drive-in for staging concerts.

“I’ve thought about for years. I do think there’s a market for that.”

As for the very real prospect of being closed all summer, he says that’s something he tries not to think about, hard as that is.

“We certainly don’t want to go through that but we could absolutely survive. We haven’t spent any of the profits. We’ve reinvested into the property and that has put us in a better position.”

For more information on the Lindsay Drive-In, including updates it pertains to the COVID-19 situation and its effects on the business, visit www.lindsaydrivein.ca.

With the Havelock Family Drive-In permanently closing in 2019, the Lindsay Drive-In is one of two remaining drive-ins in the Kawarthas. kawarthaNOW also reached out to the Port Hope Drive-In in Cobourg, which is also temporarily closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but didn’t hear back by deadline.

A brief history of the drive-in theatre

This content was originally written by Bruce Head for kawarthaNOW in 2018 — the 85th anniversary of the drive-in theatre.

The concept of the drive-in theatre was invented in the late 1920s by Richard Hollingshead of Camden, New Jersey. The story goes that his overweight mother couldn’t get comfortable in regular movie theatre seats, so Hollingshead came up with the idea of an open-air theatre.

He mounted a 1928 Kodak movie projector on the hood of his car, projected the film onto a screen made of two sheets nailed between two trees, and placed a radio behind the screen for sound. Eventually he developed a ramp system so cars could park at different heights to see the screen without being unobstructed by other vehicles.

In 1933, Hollingshead received a patent for the concept, formed Park-In Theatres, Inc. and opened “Automobile Movie Theater” — the very first drive-in theatre. He charged 25 cents per person and 25 cents per car, with a maximum cost of $1. Park-It Theaters later licensed the concept to Loews Drive-In Theaters, Inc. (the origin of the phrase “drive-in theatre”), but drive-ins didn’t become popular until the advent of in-car speakers in the early 1940s. In 1946, Skyway Drive-In in Stoney Creek, Ontario (since closed) was the first drive-in theatre to open in Canada.

After some legal issues between Park-In Theaters and Loews Drive-In Theaters, Hollingshead’s original patent was overturned in 1950, and drive-ins began popping up everywhere. They were popular because they offered affordable family entertainment. People could bring their babies and kids and amorous teenagers could find some privacy from their parents in what became known as the “passion pit”.

During the drive-in peak of the late 1950s and early 1960s, there were more than 4,000 drive-in theatres in the U.S. and 250 in Canada. Today, there are fewer than 350 drive-ins left in the U.S. and fewer than 50 in Canada.

The decline of the drive-in began in the 1970s, with the rise of home entertainment options — colour television, cable, VCRs, and video rentals — that encouraged families to stay in the comfort of their homes. The energy crisis of the 1970s also had an impact, as did the widespread adoption of Daylight Saving Time (which forced movies to start an hour later, making them less family friendly).

To supplement their declining revenues, some drive-ins (which were already showing B movies rather than first-run movies, due to restrictions from movie studios) began screening mature films and adult films. However, this created a negative image and further discouraged families from attending.

The growing real estate market and increasing property taxes also affected the viability of drive-in theatres, many of which were located in the suburbs or in rural areas. Theatre owners ended up selling to developers who built shopping malls or residential housing developments on the properties.

Despite the decline in attendance that shuttered many theatres, the quality of the drive-in experience continued to improve. In the 1970s, the original sound system used for drive-in theatres (an external speaker hung inside a car’s window) was replaced by low-power AM broadcasts to car radios and, in the 1980s, by higher-quality FM radio broadcasts.

In the early 1990s, movie studios began offering first-run movies to drive-ins, and the drive-in theatre had somewhat of a resurgence. People could now see new and popular movies at drive-ins instead of going to a regular movie theatre.

The resurgence was short lived, however. In the 1990s and the 2000s, even more home entertainment options became available, including DVDs, larger and cheaper high-definition flat-screen televisions, and streaming internet video including Netflix. The final nail in the coffin for some drive-ins came in the early 2000s, when movie studios began to move away from producing 35mm film prints to digital, with an ultimatum issued to theatres to switch to digital in 2013.

This meant that drive-ins had to purchase high-definition digital projectors if they wanted to screen new movies. The conversion cost was $75,000 to $100,000 per screen — a difficult expense for drive-in theatres to justify with a limited number of daily screenings, and particularly for Canadian drive-in theatres that only operate for part of the year.

Still, even facing all these obstacles, drive-ins continue to make a go of it. But if you want to keep your local drive-in in business, make going to a drive-in movie a regular outing during the season.

The 175th annual Peterborough Exhibition has been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic — but exhibitors will still be able to show their animals online through a virtual version of the event.

On Tuesday (May 26), the board of the Peterborough Agricultural Society announced the decision to shift the event, originally scheduled to take place in early August at Morrow Park, to a virtual version.

“Although the pandemic has forced us to postpone the Ex as we know it, there is an increased interest in agriculture,” says board president Victoria McEldon. “People are once again looking at farming with great interest. We want to help foster and celebrate that.”

The virtual event will allow some exhibitors to show their animals through video and photos, which will be uploaded for judging. The poultry and open horse show will move online, as well as the market steer and lamb show and sale.

Other exhibits such as the beef show, homecraft, sheep, and commercial horse and goat shows will be featured through a series of agriculture education videos and online content as part of the virtual event.

“We are excited about this new, re-imagined event and look forward to a time when we can safely bring people together to celebrate our 175th anniversary,” McEldon says.

Registration for the virtual exhibition will open later in the summer and producers are encouraged to check the Peterborough Exhibition website at peterboroughex.ca for updates.

The Peterborough Police Service has opened a new office at the transit terminal on Simcoe Street in downtown Peterborough. Although the office will increase security at the transit terminal, it’s not intended to be used by the public to report crimes or seek police assistance.

Described by the police as a “satellite office”, the location officially opened its doors to the public on Tuesday (May 26).

The new office will mainly be used by officers working in what police call “Area 1”, the section of Peterborough that includes the downtown core.

In the future, the satellite office will also be used when police host meetings with community partners or stakeholders.

A display screen located outside the office will broadcast police-related messaging and information including crime prevention tips, upcoming events, and recruiting or volunteer opportunities.

“Our downtown office will increase our visibility in the downtown core, increase security at the bus terminal, and also allow for even more engagement opportunities with our community and stakeholders,” says police inspector John Lyons.

Unlike the Peterborough police headquarters located on Water Street, the satellite office will not be open at all times, and police are asking members of the public not to visit the office to report an incident or if they need police assistance.

The public should continue to call 9-1-1 in an emergency or, in a non-emergency, call the non-emergency line at 705-876-1122. Members of the public can also report a non-emergency crime at peterboroughpolice.com/report/a-crime/.

“This is another way that police are accessible in our community,” says Peterborough mayor Diane Therrien. “The bus terminal is a central location where police can interact with residents, helping to promote safety.”

Premier Doug Ford’s recent plea that more Ontarians get tested for COVID-19 — even if they don’t have symptoms — has already led to a dramatic increase in the number of people being tested at the Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC) COVID-19 Assessment Centre.

According to hospital vice-president Dr. Lynn Mikula, the centre tested 93 people Monday (May 25) — its highest one-day total to date.

“I hope the number of tests being done will continue to go up,” said Dr. Mikula during a media briefing on Tuesday (May 26).

On Sunday (May 24), Ontario Premier Doug Ford made a public plea for the people of Ontario to get tested for COVID-19, following up on comments he made earlier in the week.

“If you are worried if you have COVID-19, or that you’ve been exposed to someone who has COVID-19, even if you’re not showing symptoms, please go get a test,” Ford said on Sunday.

That message has apparently resonated with Peterborough area residents, according to Dr. Mikula.

“In the early going, when the testing criteria was restricted, we were seeing 25 people a day. In recent weeks, it’s been between 30 and 50 people daily. Over the weekend and yesterday, we took appointments for people who are asymptomatic or concerned they had been exposed.”

“We’re getting close to reaching our capacity in the assessment centre. We’re exploring an alternate option with Peterborough Public Health and Peterborough Paramedics. We’re hoping to announce something about that very soon.”

Dr. Mikula noted the testing of asymptomatic people involves “a quick drop-in kind of testing.”

“Currently when you come to the assessment centre, you do see a physician and you undergo a medical assessment,” she said. “This alternative will not have the physician and the full medical assessment. It’s for people who don’t have symptoms and just need to get a swab done.”

To date, the PRHC Assessment Centre has tested more than 5,000 people since it opened early on during the pandemic. An appointment with the centre can be made by calling 705-876-5086. That number is open to call seven days a week, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Meanwhile, the hospital continues to treat one COVID-19 patient in its intensive care unit.

As of Tuesday morning, there have been 81 positive COVID-19 cases detected in Peterborough city and county, Curve Lake, and Hiawatha, with 71 of those cases now resolved. More than 7,200 people have been tested for the virus in the region.

One thing that was a major concern for the hospital appears to be righting itself.

“Volumes through the emergency department are increasing bit by bit and we’re getting back close to what we normally expect to see,” said Dr. Mikula who, a few weeks back, urged those requiring emergency care to come to PRHC for that care without worrying about COVID-19 infection.

Dr. Mikula added the hospital is targeting early June for a “gradual, measured ramp-up” of non-urgent care pending provincial approval.

“We’re working with our partners on a co-ordinated regional approach,” she said. “All hospitals remain under a provincial directive to keep non-urgent care at a minimal level. While we await the lifting of this directive, we’re continuing to plan and prepare.”

“PRHC will be resuming non-urgent care in a phased manner with an abundance of caution and oversight in a number of key areas and will continuously monitor the impact on the hospital and the health care system before moving on to the next phase. At times, we may need to scale back on non-urgent care volumes again as COVID-19 activity in our community fluctuates.”

Non-urgent, or elective care, is “something that can wait potentially months or longer” explained Dr. Mikula, while semi-urgent care involves conditions that will continue to progress unless treated.

She said that, as the hospital will set priorities according to the level of clinical urgency as it assesses patients.

“It is a stable condition? Is it a condition that needs treatment to halt its progression? Is it an urgent condition that we need to deal with in 24 to 48 hours?”

Sultry summer weather has arrived early and with a vengeance.

Environment Canada has issued a heat warning for much of the Kawarthas region, including Peterborough, Kawarthas Lakes, and Northumberland.

Temperatures will soar again to 29°C on Tuesday (May 26), to 32°C on Wednesday, and to 30°C on Thursday.

Humidex values will make it feel like it’s 36°C each afternoon.

Some relief is expected near the shorelines of the Great Lakes.

A cold front will deliver considerably cooler and less humid air to southern Ontario on Friday.

Environment Canada issues heat warnings when very high temperature or humidity conditions are expected to pose an elevated risk of heat illnesses, such as heat stroke or heat exhaustion.

The risks are greater for young children, pregnant women, older adults, people with chronic illnesses and people working or exercising outdoors.

Drink plenty of water even before you feel thirsty and stay in a cool place.

Never leave people or pets inside a parked vehicle.