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Business Needs During Pandemic Far Outweigh Solutions
Business Aug 05, 2020
The City of Monrovia has set up temporary barriers like this outside Peach Café in an effort to help the restaurant business comply with health ordinances that prevent indoor dining. – Photo by Terry Miller/Beacon Media News
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Businesses struggling through theeconomic hardships of the pandemic have led cities and the state of Californiato offer unprecedented assistance to help firms, large and small, stay abovewater.
Mandates and restrictions —mostly incurred via county health and state regulations — have created aneconomic nightmare like quicksand for many in the business community and somelocal cities have been lenient with those found in violation of the new realitywe are all facing.
However, the reality, accordingto Monrovia City Manager Dylan Feik, is that business needs during the pandemicfar outweigh what local cities or states can offer. This poignant observationreflects the anxiety merchants are feeling in every city in the United States.
With that said, local cities likeMonrovia, Pasadena and Sierra Madre have tried to help ailing restaurants by expandingdining opportunities literally into the streets. Some eateries have also spentadditional funds to create semi-permanent outdoor patios in an effort to stayin business.
With retail, problems are morecomplex. With a limited number of customers allowed at any given time, theaverage shopkeeper isn’t necessarily about to make a good living. Things havechanged due to the pandemic
Feik told Beacon Media that thecity has been “Very lenient during COVID. We have not issued a single citationrelated to COVID and work tirelessly to educate/inform residents and businesses.One business continues to have outdoor music playing on certain nights whenwe’ve told the business owner three times it is not allowed. Right now, the stateis offering a program to businesses that essentially allows them to keep salestax dollars as a ‘loan’ and repay it over the next 12 months. It’s not freemoney rather a loan, but it should help. There are also federal CARES Actdollars that support operating costs during the pandemic. Aside from thesetemporary solutions, I’m not aware of a long-term program/plan to addressrising rents.”
With all this, the overwhelmingstruggles also boil down to the biggest monthly expense: rent.
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