Painting the Town Yellow
For Paul Vensel, having coffee on Main Street was a great way to start the day Friday.
After coronavirus precautions were put into place around mid-March, the 73-year-old Butler man mostly stayed inside. But on Friday, he got a taste of normalcy along with his coffee and cigarettes.
More than a dozen counties, including Butler, moved from Gov. Tom Wolf's “red” to “yellow” phase at midnight, allowing some businesses to reopen after the most restrictive virus precautions were lifted.
Vensel took the opportunity to visit Main Street Friday morning.
Under the yellow phase, retail stores are allowed to open while restaurants and bars remain limited to carry out and delivery. Stores that open must follow guidelines for social distancing and cleaning established by both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Pennsylvania Department of Health, including wearing masks around others.
The state's department of health warned that a failure to follow these guidelines “would likely result in a spike of cases and new stay-at-home and closure orders.”
Even with the new restrictions, it began to feel like business as usual for Ryan Bowser, co-owner of Benjamin Beetle apparel and accessory shop on Butler's Main Street.“It started out slow (today), but it came out with a bang at lunch time,” Bowser said, describing the first day back in business since closing in March. “We'll see how it plays out, but today has been good.”Customers flowed into the store expressing their excitement at the reopening — while masked and keeping appropriate social distance.“I'm so glad you guys are back open,” customer Ciarra Hall told Bowser.Bowser said he's lucky, his business was financially sound going into the pandemic.“We were right on par for our best year yet,” Bowser said, adding how the lengthy closure certainly had consequences with the business not being set up for internet sales. “This has definitely set us back.”For him, that may mean putting off renovations planned for the front of the store. But he was thankful for his position.“It's definitely hit a lot of businesses worse than us,” he added.Up the street, Gilly's Wheel House owners reported a surprising benefit to the pandemic. The locally owned bike shop that had just opened in October was slammed with bike repairs throughout the shutdown. “We've been busier than expected,” said co-owner Rich Gigliotti.While open for repair appointments as an essential business during the shutdown, the shop reopened it's doors to the public Friday for the first time since on the pandemic hit.Schools, gyms and hair salons will remain closed under the state's “yellow” classification while other restrictions on work and social interaction will ease.Local child care centers, such as the YMCA, will reopen as well so long as they adhere to the guidelines. Butler County Family YMCA announced Friday that its child care centers within the YMCA's North Washington Street facility, and His Kids Christian School on Saxonburg Road, will reopen May 26.
The return to some sense of normalcy was a welcome one for Vensel.“I live downtown. I love downtown,” he said. “I've been staying in the house for six weeks. It's tolerable. It is what it is. I have money in the bank and food in the fridge, and I get to see the sun rise every morning, which is all you can ask for at my age.”Vensel enjoyed the sunny day by sitting near Cummings Coffee. He said his body had grown weak after being sedentary for so long.“It's going to be a bleak summer with all these events being closed, and financially it's going to be a big blow to everyone,” Vensel said. “We've been lucky in the county with low (virus) cases. I love this yellow thing, getting back to some normalcy. I think Wolf is doing as good as he can.”Vensel said he believes many aspects of society will change as a result of the virus and the country's response to it.“The structure of society will change, and that might be for the better,” Vensel said, noting that more restaurants might continue to move toward food deliveries over dining space.
Up the block near the Butler Vietnam War Memorial, Shirley Jackson relaxed and cautioned against being too hasty in relaxing coronavirus-related restrictions.“We don't know everything about this,” Jackson said, referring to the virus. “We should have prepared earlier, and we should have widespread testing in place. We could have been ahead of the ballgame.”Jackson, who has lived in the Butler area since the 1990s, said the virus precautions haven't disrupted her lifestyle.“I like to stick to myself, don't want people to be too close anyhow,” Jackson said. “We can't just sit back and pray on it.”Out for a lunch break walk down Main Street, NextTier Bank employees Lisa Boyd and Rhonda Rumbaugh echoed some of Jackson's apprehension.“It's scary,” Rumbaugh said of the pandemic shift to yellow. “I'm not worried; I'm just cautious.”Boyd agreed, adding that “I still support the cautious phase.”Both said they have adjusted to the new normal with Rumbaugh, saying she has been shopping more online. Boyd, on the other hand, voiced a new appreciation for staying home and saving money.Like Vensel, Jackson said she believed the virus would spur change in society.“We have to focus on ourselves and to rethink how the new world order will look. We need to stop violence and abuse. They need to love and know themselves,” Jackson said.Nearby at the Upper Crust Shop, customer John Marten waited for his food order at the sandwich shop. As the landlord of several residential rentals in the area, Marten said business has been usual for him, adding that most of his tenants have continued to pay rent.The local landlord confirmed no virus-related illnesses were reported in his buildings.“We were very careful with sterilizing everything,” he said. “It really hasn't affected me. I just wish more stores were open.”
While some businesses have been able to manage, the larger regional and national picture is likely to be significantly more dire.According to The Associated Press, national retail sales tumbled by a record 16.4 percent from March to April as business shutdowns caused by the coronavirus kept shoppers away.The Commerce Department reported Friday that retail purchases showed a sector that has collapsed so quickly that sales over the past 12 months are down a crippling 21.6 percent. The severity of the decline is unrivaled for retail figures that date to 1992. The monthly decline in April nearly doubled the previous record drop of 8.3 percent — set just one month earlier.Locally, the Butler County Tourism & Convention Bureau will be trying to help businesses jump-start their way out of the shutdown, according to Jack Cohen, bureau president. The bureau created a series of videos to help businesses learn how to set up online delivery systems.“We're trying to get some normality going,” Cohen said. “It's a slow process, and it's a good beginning today.”With the help of the Butler County Chamber of Commerce and other organizations, the bureau even released a video featuring various small-business owners that opened Friday.Cohen noted that even with the yellow phase in place, “restaurants are still struggling because they can't use their dining room. So they'll have to wait for the next phase.”For North Country Brewing Company in Slippery Rock, that is exactly the case.The pub restaurant switched to takeout and deliveries since the shutdown, according to the store's general manager Gabbie Rizzi.“Business has been good. We've had a good community welcoming and we're still doing online food orders so that helps,” Rizzi said.Still, she noted, business has been down since they can't have customers eat in.“We've been renovating inside and we'll have a new menu once we open up so that's something to look forward to. We're still brewing new beers and releasing them,” Rizzi said. “It's exciting to have stuff to look forward to.”
