Interior Health fines North Okanagan gym for violating COVID-19 order to close

When Interior Health says it wants a business closed immediately during the COVID-19 pandemic it’s serious.

The health authority ordered all Interior B.C. fitness centres, gyms, yoga studios and similar training facilities to close immediately on Thursday, April 2. The order is in effect until May 30 but can be modified at any time.

The next afternoon, Interior Health fined Fitness 2 Life Ltd. in Armstrong for failing to comply with that order, the first fine levied by the authority.

The fine was for $345, which is the standard fine for not following an Interior Health order, communications officer Susan Duncan said in an email to iNFOnews.ca.

If it had been an order from the provincial health officer, the fine could have been more than $25,000 with the possibility of jail time.


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Rob Munro

Rob Munro

Rob Munro has a long history in journalism after starting an underground newspaper in Whitehorse called the Yukon Howl in 1980. He spent five years at the 100 Mile Free Press, starting in the darkroom, moving on to sports and news reporting before becoming the advertising manager. He came to Kelowna in 1989 as a reporter for the Kelowna Daily Courier, and spent the 1990s mostly covering city hall. For most of the past 20 years he worked full time for the union representing newspaper workers throughout B.C. He’s returned to his true love of being a reporter with a special focus on civic politics