The City of Grande Prairie would like more detailed information on the provincial government’s re-opening plans for local businesses hurt by the COVID-19 shutdown.

“Council’s discussion (on Monday night) was about getting more information. (This letter to the province) will take it to the next step,” said Mayor Jackie Clayton.“What additional information could we find out? Whether it is working with other sports or getting necessary people back to work, what (do) the parameters of getting people back to work mean?”

Local business owners Chris and Heather Fedorick appeared before city council, expressing their frustration and concern why their business — TRAPPED Entertainment — was put into the latter stages of the coronavirus re-opening plan, the same as concerts and trade shows.

“Our business has been lumped in as indoor entertainment, so we are in Phase 4 of the opening plan for the province,” said TRAPPED co-owner Heather Fedorick. “Phase 4 includes all indoor entertainment, generally speaking like play places, where multiple families are coming together at the same time from different households, touching the same equipment.”

According to its website, TRAPPED is an interactive escape game for two to eight players.

The pair pointed out they have gone to great lengths to limit groups to single households. All bookings are private, times staggered to leave extra time to sanitize the rooms and prevent overlap with other groups.

“TRAPPED is different,” Heather said. “We invite households to come in. They go in to one of our escape rooms, which are fully sanitized between families. They enjoy their entertainment and when they are done they leave. We have set it up in such a way that our customers never come into contact with other customers — not even in the hallway— everything is by appointment only, our front door is locked at all times and we have removed things from the room that can’t be sanitized.”

The Fedoricks talked to Premier Jason Kenney and Dr. Deena Hinshaw during a telephone town hall last week but were hoping city council could also work on getting more information from the province.

The mayor agreed the information coming from Alberta Health should not be so general, as it confuses people looking for information on when and how they can re-open businesses.

“Specific criteria is of extreme importance,” Clayton said. “Not all businesses of one sector can be (linked) together. When you lump these businesses together, sometimes the blanket regulation isn’t suitable for everybody. Although the province has laid out their four-phase plan, it was high level in its nature. There could potentially be more drilled down specific regulations that would be valuable to businesses. Ideally, we want to get as many people back to work in a safe community.”