Alberta is slowly opening for business, but some entrepreneurs are being left out of the restart.

Starting January 18, personal care businesses — like barbershops, tattoo parlours, nail and hair salons — are able to open for appointment-only services. Restrictions that limited funerals to 10 attendees have been lifted to allow for 15 per cent of fire code capacity. Outdoor gatherings are no longer banned, but rather limited to 10 people.

However, yoga studios, gyms, restaurants and bars are still ordered closed, though daily COVID-19 case counts in the province are declining.

And that arbitrary rule is hurting small business owners like Tawny Craig of InHouse Yoga and Wellness in the small summer resort community of Alberta Beach, west of Edmonton. The health orders say she must close, but she isn’t. Tawny reached out to us at our special portal for businesses willing to defy the lockdown at www.IWillOpen.com to tell us that she is opening her studio up to clients again, for their health and for her own.

I went out to Alberta Beach on Sunday morning to meet with Tawny and hear her story, and to promise her that if she gets a fine for her act of economic survival, Rebel News will help her through our lockdown civil liberties project at www.FightTheFines.com by putting her in touch with a lawyer who will fight her fine at no cost to her.