Stock photo of a restaurant kitchen (Photo via Pixabay)

The President of the BC Restaurant and Food Services Association would like to see the limit for how many people can sit around a table at a restaurant increase.

The maximum number of patrons per table is currently six, and Ian Tostenson says he would like to see that number go up.

“We’ve actually put a request in to increase it to eight,” he said on NL Newsday. “Operators feel that could accommodate two sets of grandparents and a family easier, so eight might be better from that point of view.”

Tostenson is also suggesting that masks be mandated for all restaurant staff members.

“It’s not number on in terms of safety, it’s lower on [Dr. Henry’s] list,” he noted. “But from a public perception point of view, we are going to make a recommendation for restaurants to say just do this because public confidence is really what we have to work on right now particularly with the situation that happened a few weeks ago just down the road from Kamloops.”

Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says it may not necessary to mandate that servers in restaurants wear masks while on the job.

Its as servers are able to physically distance from customers and fellow servers a lot easier than people who work in restaurant kitchens, for example.

“So there are situations where if things are being done and you have those administrative controls and people are behaving in the way we need them to, then masks are not required,” Henry said.

Henry has said repeatedly that a mask is an added layer of protection for when you can’t physical distance.

“When we are talking about risk of transmission, its both proximity, so distance and time,” she noted. “So the server should provide things to you and step away and not talk in close to people and in those situations a mask is not always required.”

“That’s one of the reasons why the groups are small, so that tables can be spaced enough apart and that the server can spend minimal amount of time at a table.”