Leamington is beefing up police presence of its outdoor facilities once again this summer.
Last year, the town used a portion of its COVID-19 Safe Restart Grant to cover the $50,000 cost for off-duty OPP officers at Seacliff Park and Beach as well as the promenade and marina.
Council has approved doing the same this year with additional patrols set for Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and holiday Mondays.
Mayor Hilda MacDonald says it comes down to keeping everyone safe.
"We're just looking at extra law enforcement to give our bylaw department extra feet on the ground. It's not to be hard lined, it's just to try and follow the provincial orders as best we can," he says.
MacDonald says just having a police presence can help.
"Sometimes it's even just a deterrent itself right? When folks think they're going to gather in groups of 20 and so on and there's uniformed officers there the tendency to do that is a little bit clawed back. So it's all education and encouragement," she says.
MacDonald says police will only be around as long as they need to be.
"If the enforcement regulations change or actually get completely wiped off then there won't be the necessity to do that, but as long as we have some rules for gathering limitations we're looking to our OPP law enforcement to give our bylaw department a hand," he says.
With the addition of holiday Mondays this year, the off-duty officers will cost $71,000 which will be covered by the town's COVID-19 recovery grant.
The additional patrols will be in place until Sept. 10.