COVID orders smack businesses
Butler County businesses are bracing for the impact of Saturday's new COVID-19 restrictions.
Along with a number of other measures, the orders issued by Gov. Tom Wolf and Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine effectively shut down indoor dining and bar patronage and completely closed other businesses, like fitness centers and entertainment venues.
For the Beacon Hotel, preparation means standing firm and turning on the lights tomorrow.
“If we close right now, we'll be finished,” said Deb Krelow, owner of the bar and grill in Renfrew. “We won't survive. So, we're staying open.”
And so the staff at the Beacon continued to sanitize every surface, wear their masks and follow every other guideline, except one, to close for the next three weeks.
The orders began at 12:01 Saturday and continue through 8 a.m. Jan. 4.
Ashley Gamble, owner of Forever Kindred in Butler Township, said it took five months to transition her 4-year-old online business into a physical store.
“Being that we're brand new, it's obviously a little scary,” Gamble said.
Having opened in November, Gamble had to immediately adjust to a change in people's buying habits because of the pandemic — as shoppers focused more on items used in the home and not so much worn to the office.
“As a retail clothing store, what we're running into is that people online and in-store are buying accessories and food items,” she said. “We're still doing pretty good.”
Every business across the hospitality and tourism industries have been impacted, according to Jack Cohen, president of the Butler County Tourism and Convention Bureau.
According to Cohen's estimates, about 10,000 people were employed in the tourism and hospitality industry before the pandemic reached full stride in the spring. He said about 8,000 of those workers were laid off.
“It hasn't come back that much in our industry,” Cohen said. “The businesses can't bring people back. They can't pay their utilities.”
The latest orders could mean 8,000 or more people could be out of work again heading into the Christmas season, which is a highly profitable time not only for the businesses but also for the staffs, bartenders and servers.
“I can't do that to my employees,” Krelow said.
She said she wants to keep the pandemic at bay, but not at the cost of her employees bringing home nothing in the weeks leading to and beyond Christmas.“We have a right to work here, to employ people, and to make a living,” Krelow said. “(These orders are) a violation of our constitutional rights.”Cohen said he doesn't question the legitimacy of Wolf's latest orders or the reasons behind them as the state and county have seen all-time high cases of COVID-19. He said people have created this problem by calling the virus a hoax and disobeying the simple measures they could have taken, like wearing a mask, to prevent all this.“I honestly felt that (Wolf) didn't have a choice. When it comes to people's safety and to protect the citizens, you have to make tough decisions,” he said. “Even if I disagree with it, I have to honor it.”Yet there is a glaring deficiency, according to Cohen, who said the last set of accurate data in 2018 showed Butler County's tourism industry contributed about $600 million to the county's economy.Cohen said that every day that cost and the burden of those losses will be shared by more than the businesses they close.“That's going to come, and we're all going to have to pay the price,” he said. “We know that's devastating to a community.”He said Wolf has made these tough decisions, but has largely asked the federal government to cleanup the fallout from those choices.The governor on Thursday reiterated his support of the Restaurant Act of 2020 that would establish a $120 billion Restaurant Revitalization Fund that would distribute relief to restaurants and bars across the country. The bill has since been folded into the larger Coronavirus aid package being debated in the U.S. Senate.Cohen said there could have been more done at the state level without having to rely on the federal funding, but in the meantime, a partnership has formed to help some at the county level.In an announcement Thursday, following the governor's, a partnership of the Butler County commissioners, the Center for Community Resources and the tourism bureau offered hope to some hospitality industry employees affected by the layoffs likely to come.“It just hurts knowing that I know people are going to lose their jobs tomorrow,” Cohen said. “I know we're going to get out of it, but there are a lot of people who can't wait, and that's the sad part.”For businesses like Gamble's which operate largely online as well, the hit is lessened. She said the downside for her is not reaching her goal of having about a 50%-to-50% relationship between online and in-person sales.She said she currently does about 90% of her sales still online by relying on a following she built up over years.“I feel bad for the companies who don't have that,” Gamble said. “I feel very thankful that I have a very stable community online.”Cohen said this will be another damaging three weeks for the people in his industry. He said ultimately only people making the right choices — wearing a mask, washing their hands and socially distancing — will see an end to the hard restrictions.“Hopefully the numbers will start to go down now, and maybe we can get people back to work again,” Cohen said.
