As restaurant and bar owners continue to call for additional relief funding amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Connecticut House Republicans announced a proposed relief package Wednesday aimed at assisting the struggling industry.
The legislation seeks to establish a $50 million grant fund for those businesses with qualifying monetary losses, install a yearlong suspension of liquor permitting fees and food licensing fees for certain restaurants and impose a 90-day delay of municipal tax payments. The proposed package also directs the Department of Economic and Community Development to work with financial institutions to create low-interest loan programs for the industry.
“We believe relief needs to be brought to this industry so that they’re here to survive into 2021,” House Republican leader-elect Rep. Vincent Candelora said. “We want to target our mom and pop stores [with this grant program].”
The grants would be offered on a sliding scale — from $5,000 to $25,000 — tied to sales tax revenue, and tied to restaurants that don’t have takeout options or seating. Candelora said the funding could come from money the state received from the federal CARES Act, and that can’t be done, it would be a “budget priority” in the next legislative session.
Restaurant workers rallied outside of the Governor’s Residence and state Capitol Monday, demanding additional relief. The restaurateurs — as well as the CT Brewers Guild, which sent a letter to Lamont asking for similar relief — claim previous $5,000 grants provided through CARES Act funding were not enough.
Rep. Holly Cheeseman, R-East Lyme, said Massachusetts has offered restaurateurs grants of up to $75,000 while Rhode Island has offered up to $30,000.
“This is an immediate need,” Cheeseman said. “If the CARES Act money is there, we need to use it.”
Scott Dolch, executive director of the Connecticut Restaurant Association, said the state can do more in terms of grant funding.
“I just want to help the hardest-hit businesses; if there’s a way to use any CARES Act dollars, if there are any left, like D.C, like Rhode Island, like Ohio, that’s what I’m hopeful for,” he said. “Our industry employs 10% of the state’s workforce. We need to make sure that those businesses survive the pandemic. It’s one thing to say they can survive another week or a couple weeks. If they can’t survive to the other side of it, those jobs are lost forever, and that’s my fear.”
Gov. Ned Lamont has hinted that additional relief may soon be on its way to the restaurant industry and at the same time has resisted calls to restrict indoor dining as other states have done.
“We got 10,000 small grants, $5,000 grants, out to the very smallest businesses that are going out as we speak,” Lamont said during the Middlesex Chamber of Commerce’s virtual luncheon Wednesday. “At the same time we’re going to be rolling out a $25 million small business grant program, and we’re going to get that up within a week. That’s not enough to take care of everybody, it takes care of those bigger businesses, those restaurants, those that are really struggling … I hope it’s a bridge to the next round [of funding] we get from the federal funding.”
Rep. Sean Scanlon, a Guilford Democrat and co-chair of the legislature’s finance committee, told The Courant he appreciates the House Republican proposal but has not had a chance to talk with them about it. He’s inclined to wait and see what happens with the proposed $900 billion COVID-19 relief bill currently being debated in Congress.
“Everybody wants to help the restaurants, it’s just a question of how, and how quickly we can do it,” Scanlon said. “I think a lot of it has to do with what happens in D.C. over the next 24 hours. They look like they’re finally zeroing in on a deal, and in that deal I do believe there will be assistance for restaurants. The question is, is it enough to help the Connecticut restaurants? If it’s not, what do we need to do?”
House Majority Leader Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford, said in a written statement: “Expanding grant programs that build upon previous efforts by Governor Lamont to support these small businesses provides us with an opportunity to work on bi-partisan solutions to address the impact that the pandemic has had on operators and their employees.”
The CT Brewers Guild has called for a rollback on food restrictions imposed by the DECD on Dec. 2 which require businesses selling alcohol to serve a “substantial meal” with it. The breweries say a more reasonable mandate would be requiring, say, chips or fries with a round of beers — instead of a full meal.
Cheesman said Wednesday she would welcome an executive order from Gov. Lamont reversing the restrictions.
“I would be delighted, because this has been a real hardship for them,” she said. “They’ve bent over backwards to comply with this, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult.”
On a call with Black business owners in Connecticut Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said he’s hopeful the $900 billion federal COVID-19 relief package will be announced by the end of the week. The package is expected to include further federal unemployment insurance, a ban on evictions, an extended pause on student loans and more funding for the Paycheck Protection Program, which has provided assistance to businesses, including restaurants.
“An announcement that will mean more loans and grants for small business,” Blumenthal said. “We’ve made tremendous progress. It’s taken longer than it should have … it will be a bridge to a robust and more significant package that I would expect from the Biden administration.”
Shawn McFarland can be reached at smcfarland@courant.com.
