Saint John re-opened six playground and recreational facilities under new provincial public health and safety guidelines in time for the Victoria Day weekend.
The facilities, which were officially re-opened Saturday, include the Rockwood Park playground, Rainbow Park playground, Forest Hills playground, Dominion Park playground and basketball court, Shamrock Park tennis courts, and the Station One Skate Park.
As part of the new guidelines, each park will be sanitized twice daily, and hand sanitizer stations will be available on-site.
“We’re certainly getting to some level of a new normalcy,” said Tim O’Reilly, deputy commissioner of parks and recreation for the city. “Providing the community with access to some of these facilities feels very good from the staff’s perspective.”
Signage will also be posted on-site illustrating the need for people to remain physically distanced, clean their hands, and not to use the space when the facility is closed or staff performs one of the twice-daily sanitizing rituals.
O’Reilly says the opening of other parks is not imminent but will be considered as the season wears on.
“Certainly we wanted to start with these facilities, and then we’ll do a kind of monitoring to see how it goes,” he said. “Potentially down the road, we’ll look to open other (parks) as well.”
