More than 60 COVID-19-related charges have been laid in the Sarnia area since the start of the pandemic.
While more than 60 COVID-related charges have been laid in the Sarnia area since the start of the pandemic, according to the latest numbers from city police, bylaw enforcement and Lambton public health, the number of complaints has plummeted in recent weeks.
Complaints were still trickling in on occasion, Michael Gorgey, the health unit’s health promotion manager with the health unit, said late last week, but had slowed as the Ontario government began relaxing most pandemic-related restrictions.
“Obviously our complaint level is way down,” Gorgey said just before Ontario’s mask mandate ended on March 21. “We’re days away from most of these – almost all – restrictions being gone, so at this point we’re just kind of live and let live.”
Sarnia police laid 46 charges under the Reopening Ontario Act in 2020 and 2021, Const. Giovanni Sottosanti said.
Most were for allegedly breaking gathering restrictions, he said, and were issued by officers and cadet recruits working with city bylaw.
Another two charges were laid under federal legislation for people allegedly violating quarantine rules, Sottosanti said. In total, Sarnia officers responded to 244 calls pertaining to COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021.
“The first year, 2020, was the most active year because we were still trying to get our bearings around what was going on and what we needed to do and who was going to do what,” he said.
After the Sarnia department worked with the local health unit and the Ministry of Labor to clarify enforcement duties, the initial focus for police was on education since many people didn’t fully understand the rules.
“A lot of times when we did lay the charges, it was flagrant or we’d already been there,” Sottosanti said.
Sarnia’s bylaw department laid a total of 16 charges, a figure that hasn’t changed since January, bylaw services manager Adam MacDonald said earlier this month.
None had yet gone to court as of March 10, he said.
“That’s how backlogged they are.”
Some of the bylaw-issued charges were for alleged gathering-limit infractions earlier in the pandemic, but most were handed to businesses allegedly violating reopening regulations, he said.
“It was all based on what stemmed at that point in time,” said MacDonald, noting that public-health rules and provincial restrictions had changed multiple times over the two years.
Bylaw officers also tried to educate offenders first before issuing charges, he said.
“If it was multiple complaints, you might get to the point where you issue a formal warning,” he said. “Once you got past that formal warning stage, if we received complaints based on the same thing again, then that would potentially lead to fines.”
The relaxation of provincial restrictions in recent weeks has led to far fewer complaints, he said.
“I don’t think we’ve taken an actual complaint in probably close to a month and a half,” he said earlier in March.
The most recent report from Sarnia’s primary control group said 2,385 complaints and inquiries had been received as of March 8.
Sarnia’s state of emergency related to the COVID-19 pandemic was ended March 4, nearly two years after it was declared on March 18, 2020.
The health unit never laid any charges under the Reopening Ontario Act but had addressed more than 660 complaints since January 2021, Gorgey said.
Numbers for 2020 weren’t available, he noted, because that information wasn’t tracked as well.
Lambton public health reported one more COVID-related death as of Monday, bringing the local death toll to 132.
Bluewater Health was reporting a total of 104 COVID-related deaths, including people hospitalized from outside Lambton, since the pandemic began.
Fewer than five people were reported in hospital Tuesday with confirmed COVID-19.