For Pennsylvania’s small restaurants and taverns, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a terrible disaster.

“This pandemic has negatively impacted the small-business mom-and-pops and their employees,” said Chuck Moran, who represents about 9,000 mom-and-pop taverns and restaurants as executive director of the Pennsylvania Licensed Beverage and Tavern Association in Harrisburg.

Even worse, and unnecessarily, restaurants are closing.

“We know that a significant number will not make it through, and we also know that 81% of the employees have at one point or another have been laid off or furloughed.”

Of the 500 active members of the association, Moran said, the average member has 16 employees.

Layoffs abound.

“Our studies show that 13 of those 16 people have been laid off at some point since last March,” Moran said.

His membership is dropping by about 15% to 25% yearly, because restaurants that have closed won’t renew their dues.

But there may be some hope, at least from a new Pennsylvania grant program.

Last week, the state announced that the COVID-19 Hospitality Industry Recovery Program will allocate $145 million in funding assistance to the hospitality industry businesses adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The program requires counties to establish grant programs for eligible businesses.

However, it’s not going to be enough to keep restaurants from closing.

Moran said it is money that Gov. Tom Wolf found through the unemployment compensation program that the governor transferred over to the General Fund.

“Not everybody is going to qualify,” Moran said.

He said a restaurant or tavern has to have fewer than 300 employees. Some restaurant owners who own four or six establishments may run into some difficulties to qualify, Moran said. They can’t be a publicly traded company.

Sadly, the ones that are doing the best are ones set up for takeout and those that had outdoor seating, Moran said.

What if, as an owner, you don’t have that? How far will a paltry $145 million go when the fate of 9,000 bars and independently owned restaurants is at stake?

To qualify for that $145 million grant program, the owners have to show at least a 25% loss.

“One location that told me they won’t qualify: it only had a 22% loss,” Moran said. “I’ve had a lot of people tell me they are down 30%, 40% and even 50%, and I have some places that hadn’t been open for the past year.”

The worst part is, the money may be too little, too late. Moran said it could be a while, perhaps July, before the money is available.

And Wolf didn’t do them any good by locking down the bars that did not have outdoor seating right before the winter holidays, a time when the industry sees its best business.

For the industry, the profit margin is somewhere between 3% and 5%, and most of that money is really made during the holiday season, Moran said.

“Not only did that hurt the business, but that’s also the most generous time of the year for wait staff to get tips,” Moran said.

Restaurant and tavern owners are trying to obey the law. But how long will they?

Moran recently spoke to a tavern owner in Western Pennsylvania who, like many restaurants owners around her, can’t hold on any longer and are opening.

“We’re starting to see pockets throughout the state, they are on that financial cliff, they are trying not to go over it, so they are bending the rules, so to speak,” Moran said. “And there’s a public out there that’s supporting them, too.”

We hope the owners can use the little bit of state money to keep going until we are out of the woods with this terrible pandemic. We urge them to obey the rules, even though we know that is hard.

— AA