The City of Toronto has cancelled all permits for events containing 250 or more people through July 31, taking the Honda Indy Toronto race off the schedule from its current date. With more than 500 people contained with the teams and staff within the NTT IndyCar Series for the July 12 race, the volume of drivers, crew, officials, and the event’s support infrastructure would easily surpass the 250-person minimum.

“It is with deep regret that we are forced to extend the cancellation of large festivals to continue to stop the spread of COVID-19 and save lives,” said Toronto Mayor John Tory. “Special events and festivals are critical to the livability, vitality and economic success of Toronto, and that is why we are launching the Cultural Festivals Recovery Program to ensure that when we defeat COVID-19, these festivals can return safely and contribute to Toronto’s economic recovery.”

With rolling event cancellations taking place since the pandemic began, Green Savoree Race Promotions, which produces the Honda Indy Toronto, began to look at alternate dates for the 34-year-old event.

“As this started to develop in recent weeks, we’ve started to look at finding a later date to reschedule the race,” Kevin Savoree told RACER. “Our team has been working on that with the city of Toronto, Exhibition Place, Honda Canada, and IndyCar.”

The mayor’s update, delivered Friday, adds another month to the last round of event cancellations, which ran through June 30. A new extension to the border crossing ban between Canada and the U.S. was also announced, with June 21 set as the new date. The second race on IndyCar’s revised calendar at Road America takes place on June 21, which could limit southbound travel for Canadian fans and racing staff to the Wisconsin road course.