By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
An emergency order calling for non-essential St. Joseph businesses to close will cripple those businesses and a business leader says some might never re-open.
St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce President Patt Lilly is concerned about the viability of some businesses as COVID-19 shuts down much of the economy.
“In spite of all the talk in Washington relative to stimulus and bailouts and so on and so forth, I think we all understand that the reality, at least I will speak from a St. Joseph perspective, is that there are going to be a number of businesses that don’t make it through this,” Lilly tells St. Joseph Post.
Lilly says some business owners have told him they cannot make it through two weeks; some cannot survive if the coronavirus threat lasts two months. A city emergency ordinance calls for only essential businesses to remain through April 2nd.
Lilly says it will be difficult for some businesses to survive, even if the federal government offers disaster loans.
“When I’ve had a chance to talk to some of the small businesses and more recently during the flood when the same kind of disaster loans were being offered, most of them said, hey, I don’t have any debt and that’s how I make it. What I do is I pay as I go. I can’t afford to take on debt,” according to Lilly. “So that really doesn’t do me any good. Those are the kind of challenges that small businesses face.”
Lilly says restaurants and bars which can no longer offer dine-in service are attempting alternatives simply to survive.
“Those businesses are trying to do what they can to literally allow for some income and the ability to pay some of their employees and while there has been a lot of rallying around that, how long will that last?” Lilly asks. “You know, the Chamber has created a website that connects the community to some of these restaurants so that people can use them to order food and what have you, but again I just wonder how long people are going to continue to do that.”
The emergency order went into effect after midnight Monday. It runs through April 2nd.