Chatham-Kent’s CAO says there are consequences for breaking the provincial stay at home orders.
A 38 year old Dresden man has been charged with failing to comply with the provincial stay-at-home order following a packed church service Sunday.
Chatham-Kent police reported 56 cars in the parking lot of the Old Colony Mennonite Church in Dresden with more than 70 people leaving the church without masks on.
“Let’s take the emotions off the table, we’ve got people that are disregarding a provincial requirement to stay closed,” Shropshire says. “We’ve said for over a year now the approach that we try to take in Chatham-Kent is to start with educating people as to what the requirements are to remain closed or when they can remain open with restrictions. With those people that chose to disregard that, then there are charges laid.”
Chatham-Kent Police are also still investigating a similar service at the Old Colony Mennonite Church in Wheatley this past weekend, and the investigation into an anti-lockdown rally at Tecumseh Park on April 26th continues as well.
“There’s an escalation of the penalties that could be involved, up to and including going to court. It’s not just the churches, we’ve also had that with a couple pf private businesses where we’ve warned people on more than one occasion and I’m not going to sit here and try to tell you there’s a threshold that after one (warning) it escalates or whatever, it sort of depends, each one we try to evaluate the circumstances.”
As it stands, the stay-at-home order will remain in place until at least May 20th, limiting gatherings both indoors and outdoors to those in your own household, along with other restrictions.
