VIDEO: Some downtown Kelowna retailers reopening

More downtown Kelowna businesses are opening. Last month the vast majority closed their doors. Most out of concern about COVID-19, but also because the decrease in foot traffic left the streets too empty to justify remaining open. Now, several of them have reopened their doors.

H&R Block opened its downtown Kelowna office this week, and Doreen Velin, at Cruzwear Unlimited has re-opened her beachwear store. She said it can be done safely. She's open on a limited basis, two days per week.

"If I can open up one day," she said, "and leave it for 72 hours then there's a deep clean and a sterilization of all your products. So people feel safe."

Chris Murphy at Blackfish Apparel was among the first to take down the 'closed' sign. "I'm at a point now where we all have to get this going," she said. "Or it's either that or we just shut the doors and call it a day."

In an interview with KelownaNow on Monday, the CEO of Interior Health warned the business community needs to be cautious.

"I think there's some businesses that simply don't lend themselves to re-opening at this point," she said. But she stopped short of saying all retail stores should remain closed.

"It will depend," she said, "the physical environment, the amount of staff they have and if they can keep everybody safe including themselves."

Lefty Hendrickson of the Downtown Shoe Stores, who once played offensive end for the BC Lions, is waiting to see what his neighbours do rather than jumping off the line early.

I'm hoping that as things progress things look like others are going to open, we'll probably be one of the first to open up as soon as we can."

Kim Williams has re-opened her Wild Kingdom shop for adults and she's urging other businesses to follow suit. "Number one, we were not mandated to close," she pointed out. "I thought to myself, 'how can I keep my staff safe, and my customers safe and still do business? So I put protocols into place when you walk in my door, hand sanitizing, social distancing, and only allowing four people in my store at once."

Brown is concerned about what might happen, if we have a rapid resurgence in the retail sector, it could backfire.

"If we go too fast and we don't see the flattening continue then obviously we'll have to get stricter again," she said.

"The worst-case scenario for this province is that we have a big surge."