Rebellion Brewing ready for no restrictions come Sunday

Rebellion Brewing is getting ready to welcome back a room full of customers — masked or not.

“We’ve had a couple of meetings over the last couple weeks to see how everyone feels about things and I think at this point at Rebellion Brewing, we’re going to stick with what the public health orders are,” said Mark Heise, the president and CEO of the Regina-based brewing company.

“We’re going to be respectful of anyone who chooses to wear a mask. I’m sure that my staff will continue to do so and as long as people are being safe and responsible and the (COVID case) numbers continue to stay low, we’re just hopefully going to have a great summer.”

The province is set to completely remove all COVID health restrictions on Sunday, meaning the mask mandate and reduced capacities in restaurants will no longer be in effect. Rebellion Brewing was one of the first establishments to require masks — even before a provincial mandate was set out.

“I think we’re in a different state in the pandemic at this point. There’s still some concerns and potential risks out there but a majority of my staff have had their double vaccinations by now and the general feeling is that we’re more than fine following the current regulations,” Heise said.

Heise said there are some concerns in the business community about large gatherings, the Delta variant of COVID-19 and what could happen in the fall when everyone moves indoors.

“At this point, let’s see where it goes,” he said.

With the summer weather and more optimism surrounding reopening, Heise said he has noticed more and more people out and about.

“It has been nice to see the increase and it has been a gradual increase – it’s not overwhelming anyone and we’re not doing crowd control or something like that that would make people feel uncomfortable. We’ve been very happy so far,” Heise said.

For Heise, he said the numbers are going to tell the story.

“Right now the number of cases in the province is quite low (and) we’re here in the summer where people are spending more time outside as opposed to indoors with poor air circulation, so I feel fine with the way things are,” he said.