Toronto closes its skating rinks to out-of-towners

Insidehalton.com
Jan. 27, 2021

Starting next month, people living outside of Toronto will no longer be allowed reserve skating times on the city’s outdoor rinks.

The city’s park, forestry and recreation division said Tuesday that it had received “a number of complaints” to its customer service phone lines over the holidays about non-Torontonians making skate reservations online.

Starting Feb. 3, people living outside of Toronto will no longer be able to do that.

Since its 54 outdoor rinks opened in late November, the city has received more than 735,000 online skating reservations. Around 18,000 of those reservations --fewer than 2.5 per cent--were people who don’t live in Toronto, according to the city.

Out-of-town residents coming to use Toronto facilities during a provincial stay-at-home order is a marked reversal from earlier in the pandemic when municipalities surrounding Toronto --including cottage country --complained about locked-down city-dwellers fleeing to their wide open spaces.

Skating has become a contested activity around the GTA under the province’s latest lockdown. Vaughan city council will vote on a motion to reopen its outdoor rinks after the city closed them in response to the stay-at-home order. Stouffville briefly closed its outdoor rinks on Jan. 15, only to reopen them three days later. Similarly, Newmarket reopened its rinks shortly after imposing a 48-hour ban the day the province’s orders came into effect.

Before making a reservation on a Toronto rink, residents need to provide a city recreational activity number. The city said that usually people who live outside of Toronto can get these numbers to register for recreation programs like skate lessons, but only 10 days after registrations open for Toronto residents. Any fees would be higher than they would be for Toronto residents.

However, there is no penalty for not showing up for your reserved skating time. Since the city started tracking in late December, only around half of those who made online reservations end up on the ice.

Since the holidays, close to 80 per cent of those unclaimed reservations go to walk-in skaters, according to the city. Skating rink employees don’t check walk-ins for residency.

The city told the Star there had been 61 complaints related to ice rinks from Jan. 22 to Jan. 24, with only verbal warnings given and no charges issued.

At Monday’s COVID-19 briefing at city hall, Toronto Fire Chief Matthew Pegg noted that people continue to use outdoor skating rinks outside of operating hours.

“Attempting to access and/or use outdoor rinks outside of normal operating hours is both dangerous and illegal,” Pegg said.