Kelowna Toyota
Photo credit: YOUTUBE
May 11, 2021 – 11:20 a.m.
A third Kelowna store was closed by Interior Health in less than a week due to COVID-19.
The auditing firm Thalheimer & Company was hired to close its office yesterday, May 10th. The company will be closed until May 20th. She joins OK Tire on Dilworth Drive and the parts and service division of Kelowna Toyota.
It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re violating COVID safety rules, the Kelowna Toyota general manager told iNFOnews.ca.
“It’s just unfortunate timing,” said Jamie Kaban.
READ MORE: Two Kelowna auto companies shut down due to COVID transmission
Kaban voluntarily closed the parts and service department on Friday after learning from Interior Health that an employee had tested positive for COVID.
For privacy reasons, he was not told who or how many employees were infected, only that the entire department had to self-isolate. The shutdown order wasn’t given until Saturday.
“I made the decision before I got the job and thought, ‘If this happens, we’ll close to be sure,'” he said. “I don’t want customers to walk through the doors and say, ‘By the way, we have an active case. ‘All it’ll do is scare people off. ”
It was a tough decision because it meant canceling 500 appointments.
“Some people won’t rebook, but most of them were very nice,” said Kaban. “You understood why we did what we did.”
The company’s security plan was in order, he was told. All he has to do is wait for the workers to finish their isolation phase before opening again.
“I just asked them (Interior Health) if I should do something else now and they said, ‘No. Leave the contact tracking to us. We will take care of it and you follow your COVID plan to a T and there will be no further changes, ”said Kaban.
Even so, he brought an industrial disinfection mist machine with him to disinfect the entire dealership several times.
That has closed the number of businesses closed in the Interior Health region to six since new health ordinances were passed in April that allow health officials to temporarily close businesses if they have active cases associated with them.
Two more are in Summerland and one in Williams Lake.
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News from © iNFOnews, 2021
