This week, COVID-19 claimed another local business: The AMS Pub Services (TAPS).
The AMS announced Tuesday that TAPS won’t be reopening in the 2020-21 academic year due to current COVID-19 public health regulations and University restrictions which prevent the JDUC from opening to the public.
While the JDUC remains closed and the physical TAPS space is off limits, the AMS said reopening TAPS isn’t financially viable.
“We are disheartened to close TAPS for the year; this decision was extremely difficult for all involved to make,” the AMS wrote in a statement. “The decision was made in consultation with the current TAPS team, however the outcome is not easy to accept for anyone involved.”
READ MORE: Common Ground reopens with limited take-out menu
According to AMS Vice-President Alexandra Samoyloff, the AMS asked the current TAPS employees to participate in making the decision about whether to continue service operations.
“TAPS has experienced many difficulties in the last few months, due to the environment created by COVID-19 and the inability to operate with restrictions from the University as well as public health,” Samoyloff wrote in a statement to The Journal.
She added that only 56 per cent of employment offers were accepted by potential supervisors.
“It was decided to take the decision about the operations of the Service to the current TAPS employees; it requires a team to move forward and operate the Service,” Samoyloff wrote. “The outcome of consulting with TAPS employees and management, as well as taking into consideration other barriers such as the JDUC being closed to the public resulted in a decision to close the Service for the year.”
The AMS announced on March 13 that most of its services—including TAPS—would close as of March 14. The decision came after the University suspended all in-person classes on March 16 because of the pandemic.
While managers and supervisors were officially hired by the AMS, service staff had received conditional offers of employment.
Samoyloff said all TAPS employees accepted termination pay in lieu of notice, which exceeds the minimum legal requirements under Ontario Employment Standards Act and s for the exceptional circumstances of the layoffs.
READ MORE: AMS Food Bank reopens after closing due to COVID-19
“TAPS is a service and a part of Queen’s that is near and dear to the hearts of students past and present,” the AMS wrote. “Employees of TAPS have worked hard to operate this service. We thank the TAPS employees and commend their commitment
Tags
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be ed, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to [email protected].