Nightclub manager nervously approaching weekend with COVID measures lifting

Joe Jackson is uneasy as the weekend approaches.

The general manager of Pink Nightclub has been navigating a series of COVID-19 restrictions and rules for the past year and a half to keep the business alive.

With all remaining public health restrictions being lifted Sunday, Jackson is nervous and anxious about the crowds that may or may not show up.

“It makes me a bit nervous — actually, a lot nervous,” Jackson said. “It’s still the tail end of a pandemic.”

Without any provincial restrictions, masks or distancing won’t be necessary, and dancing can once again happen.

Jackson said his staff will still be wearing masks and disinfecting surfaces as they have been over the past year, and he’s asking them to take precautions like the city is in the midst of a wave of COVID-19 cases.

Small crowds haven’t been cutting it for Pink, so Jackson is happy to see that side of the business improve.

“We’ve been hurt really hard throughout the pandemic, so just from a monetary perspective, we do have to make some money,” he said. “But at the same time, we have to be socially responsible and take care of not only our staff but our guests.

“It’s kind of a very fragile balance we’re going to be walking.”

To help him get a sense of what’s to come, Jackson has been talking to club owners in Australia and the United States — places that have been operating without restrictions for months — to see what crowds and the appetite to go out and cut a rug will be.

Initial conversations have him scrambling to find enough staff.

“What they have told me is to be prepared for the busiest we have ever been,” Jackson said.

The two reasons driving the suspected rush to the dance floor is the lack of opportunity for people to go out in large groups since last winter, and the large number of people who are now of legal age but haven’t been able to celebrate.

“The other thing that I kind of joke about is these are people who have been drinking, pouring themselves triples and quintuples,” he said with a chuckle.

“The landscape is going to be a lot different and we don’t know what to anticipate.”

Jackson said many of his former staff have moved on to other careers since Pink downsized its staff during the pandemic. Now, finding experienced help is a monumental task less than three days before restrictions are lifted.

“Other bar managers and business owners that I have talked to have all had the same thing. There’s just this shortage of workers,” Jackson said.

“It’s been a fun couple of weeks trying to wrangle up bartenders and train them up. I have no idea what’s going on, really.”

Whether dozens or hundreds of people show up after restrictions are lifted, Jackson said it’s his job to keep the nightclub prepared for whatever is on the other side of Sunday’s post-pandemic reality.

“It could very well be that we’re dead, we don’t know. But that’s entirely up to the general public and the general public’s comfort level. We really just have to put our faith in the vaccine and modern medicine,” Jackson said, pointing to the Spanish Flu — the last time a pandemic devastated the Prairies.

“There’s no handbook for this. It’s not like I can call some saloon owner from the Prohibition era.”