Mayor apologizes for breaking COVID-19 rules at Trinity Bellwoods Park

Thestar.com
May 25, 2020
Betsy Powell

Trinity Bellwoods Park was a lot quieter Sunday a day after thousands of people converged on the downtown green space, ignoring social-distancing guidelines and triggering a wave of criticism and warnings by alarmed officials.

To ensure Saturday’s droves weren’t repeated, an enhanced complement of Toronto police and bylaw officers spread the word in the west-end park that no alcohol was to be consumed and that COVID-19 protocols must be followed.

Even Mayor John Tory, who visited the park throng on Saturday, was among those who fell short, as he conceded in a statement released Sunday.

“I want to apologize for my personal behaviour,” Tory said via Twitter. “I visited Trinity Bellwoods Park to try to determine why things were the way they were. I fully intended to properly physically distance but it was very difficult to do. I wore a mask into the park but I failed to use it properly, another thing I’m disappointed about.

“These were mistakes that I made and as a leader in this city, I know that I must set a better example going forward.”

Don Peat, the mayor’s spokesman, said Tory had made “significant efforts” to maintain physical distance, moving when people came too close or asking them to step back.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he had been “absolutely shocked” to see photos of the crowds that showed up at Trinity Bellwoods, saying at first he thought it was “a rock concert.”

“We just can’t have that right now. It’s just too many people, too close,” he said Sunday at Queen’s Park. “There is still a deadly virus amongst us and if we allow it, it will spread -- it will spread like wildfire.”

City workers were dispatched to the park Sunday to pick up leftover garbage. Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders came to the area to talk to neighbours, some of them irate that their properties were used as toilets by park visitors.

Saunders defended the deployment of his officers Saturday and their handling of what was not a “planned event.” It was impractical for police to issue tickets to all the people violating social-distancing rules -- or who were boozing in a public place while park washrooms remained closed due to the pandemic.

While the majority of the city’s nearly three million residents have complied with restrictions since the lockdown began in mid-March, Saunders said he also understands that the threat of COVID-19 is invisible to many. “If it was scorpions, there would be nobody here around the park,” he said.

City of Toronto spokesman Brad Ross also turned up at Trinity Bellwoods, which borders Queen Street West on the south and Dundas Street on the north. He told reporters that Saturday’s massive turnout there was “the exception” and that the vast majority of people visiting Toronto’s 1,500 parks did so in a safe manner.

Any two or more people who are not members of the same household, and who fail to keep at least two metres of distance between them in a park or public square, can receive a $1,000 fine.

Officials want to continue to emphasize education, but enforcement will take place if necessary, Ross warned: “We don’t want any repeats of (Saturday) so going forward we’ll make sure that there’s an appropriate presence of police and bylaw enforcement officers, not just in this park and other parks.”

On Saturday, officers issued 14 tickets in parks -- four of them in Trinity Bellwoods, according to a city press release.