Unfortunately, there will not be an outdoor skating rink at River Mill Park this year. Council heard the news at its November 23 meeting.
Huntsville Councillor Bob Stone, who sits on the board of the Downtown Huntsville Business Improvement Area (BIA), said there were many factors involved in the decision including the cost, timing, and the fact that sponsorships are down.
“The big one is the uncertainty over COVID of course. We’d have to staff it to monitor the number of people and as we have just moved into orange and it may go into red… too many questions and too expensive to take a risk at it so the BIA has decided not to do it this year,” said Stone at the November meeting, which occurred before Simcoe Muskoka was placed in the province’s COVID red zone.
The BIA came up with the concept in 2019 and flooded an area of the park to provide outdoor skating opportunities with support from the Town of Huntsville last winter.
Several local businesses sponsored the rink. Through sponsorship, local businesses were also being featured and the public looked forward to selected days and nights of activities, such as complementary hot chocolate, glow stick skating, business giveaways, and wood-fired pizza.
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