How to report restaurants, businesses, and workplaces breaking COVID rules

Been seeing a lot of complaints lately about places that either flout rules or don't seem to take care with physical distancing measures. As members of the public, or as employees, there's absolutely something we can do about it!

For restaurants and bars in particular, Dr. Henry's public health orders include:

• restaurants at 75% or less capacity, 2m distance must be maintained or have physical barriers separating tables
• tables limited to 6 guests max, all guests must stay in their seats unless going to the bathroom, no table hopping and no dancefloors
• events limited to 50 people
• taking contact info for tracing purposes

All businesses are supposed to have a COVID safety plan as well, which should be available on request. (No obligation to post it in public.)

If you see a business with unsafe practices, either violating public health orders, not following their own safety plan or having an inadequate one, what's been mentioned in the press briefings is to report them to your regional health authority or WorkSafeBC. Unfortunately, contact info isn't centralised and is a bit hard to find, but here's what I've gathered:

• Vancouver Coastal Health (Vancouver, Richmond, North Van to Pemberton) - fill out a complaint form and an environmental health officer will respond
• Fraser Health (Delta, Burnaby and east to Hope, north to Boston Bar) - file a restaurant complaint or call 604-587-3936, Burnaby email: [email protected]
• Interior Health (east to Alberta and north to Williams Lake) - find your coverage area here first
• Island Health - refer to each district office
• Northern Health
• local Bylaw Enforcement Office: Surrey, Coquitlam, Burnaby, Delta, New West
• WorkSafeBC - employees of private businesses have the right to refuse unsafe work

I can personally vouch for filing a restaurant complaint to VCH; they respond promptly and follow up for details. Regional health authorities are the ones who typically do restaurant inspections and have the power to shut them down -- and they don't hesitate to, even pre-COVID. They're doing random inspections now, but they can't catch everything, and they're relying on the public to keep businesses accountable.