It’s been a couple of months since Gutters closed their doors for the pandemic, but local bowlers will have a chance to get back in their colourful shoes soon (File photo/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Martin Martinson

Bowling a strike

Local bowling alley looks forward to reopening this month

Jul 2, 2020 | 5:02 PM

As businesses across the community continue to reopen, and daily life creeps back into some semblance of normalcy, an important date lies ahead for entertainment seekers in the Battlefords.

Gutters Bowling and Game Centre has announced they will reopen their doors July 16.

Owner, Joe Williams said he and his staff are looking forward to the chance to return to business and welcome the community back into the establishment.

He said while Gutters has always had an emphasis on the sanitization side of things, there will still be a few other adjustments to daily operations. Especially as it pertains to number restrictions on capacity which remain in place throughout the province.

“We’ve always sort of run like a restaurant, our sanitization was always very high on our list anyway,” Williams said. “As soon as a bowling group would leave a bowling lane we would go out there and sanitize it with bleach water – wipe down all the bowling balls, and wipe down the couches and the cleaning area – so it’s not going to change much for that area of our business, but of course the capacity is definitely going to change.”

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Among the biggest adjustments to be made will be the transition to using only every second bowling lane, with the blocked off lanes acting as a buffer between groups. There will also be a maximum of six people per-lane permitted.

Williams told battlefordsNOW league bowling won’t begin immediately, but he is hopeful they will be able to have something start-up by the time the fall rolls around. League play has become a popular draw over the last couple of years.

“We had very strong leagues last year [so] we’re absolutely hoping to have the leagues back in September,” he said. “But again, that’s going to depend on how much capacity we can actually have. Only being able to use one lane would drastically change how we can utilize a league, but going forward, I believe this is an opportunity for us to expand our leagues and actually make more time frames for leagues.”

In addition to the bowling lanes, Gutters also features other entertainment including pool tables, a golf simulator, and arcade game area.

Williams said while the pool tables and simulator are only going to get used by a couple of people at a time for the most part, the arcade games are perhaps the biggest challenge to keep clean, as young kids have a penchant for walking up to push buttons.

“We’ll probably keep [the arcade games] closed right off the bat as they get utilized by our younger patrons and their top priority is not sanitizing between going from machine to machine,” he said. “So that’s going to be our focus this next week or so to see what we can have in play and what are we going to have to put in place between those items.”

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Martin.Martinson@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: MartyMartyPxP1