Businesses prepared for second shutdown

HOT SPRINGS — When the state went into a partial shutdown in April, many businesses were left uncertain and unknowing. Now, it’s mid-July and they continue to live through the uncertain times the covid-19 pandemic provides, hoping for the best, yet planning for the worst, in the case of another shutdown.

Grand Lagniappe Shoppe owner Marcia Dobbs said she doesn’t think another shutdown is a matter of “if,” but “when.”

“I think this is getting worse, not better, and I think we’ll all just have to deal with what comes,” Dobbs said. “You have to be smart and you have to be safe, and if we have to shut down we will. … We have been open by appointment, but I am down here today and I think I am going to make the decision to close this week just to stop the spread.”

Financially, she said her business has been fortunate in being able to prepare for a “worst-case scenario” with the pandemic.

“We’ve got our rent all paid up for a year and we’ve pretty much just got utilities to deal with,” Dobbs said. “We’ve got loyal customers who aren’t really going anywhere right now, so they don’t need anything, and we don’t want to make them feel like they need to buy something. … I prepare for the worst and hope for the best. I hope that this is all over by this fall, I hope we come back roaring, I hope things are just like normal, but I’m not feeling good about it.”

She noted she was able to take advantage of financial relief programs like SupportSpaCity and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan.

Having been a business owner for 30 years, she said she has never experienced anything quite like this and everyone is currently in a “learning curve.”

“I think when March came, and we were talking about closing down, I think everyone thought ‘Oh, this is temporary, we’ll be right back before the end of the races,’ and then that didn’t happen; and then we’re like ‘What’s the next step?’ and then it was the summer season,” Dobbs said. “I’m not saying that all businesses are affected the same, and I’m not saying that everyone feels like I do, but I feel like this is a long-term process right now and that we need to shut it down.”

She said she wants the economy to thrive, but she also wants people to be safe and spend their money wisely.

“I know a lot of people got their stimulus checks … I spent mine on paying up my taxes and my bills; I hope other people did too,” she said.

Despite the uncertainty, Dobbs said she is hopeful for the future and plans to carry her 30-year business through at least another 10 years.

“It will pass, we will get through this; this country is strong, this city is strong, but I think that the fastest way is to shut it down and stop it all at once,” she said. “Get it shut down, find a vaccine and get people healthy. … There’s nothing so important that my health and my customers’ health needs to be ignored — nothing.”

Anne Marcus, owner of the Toy Chest, another local business that has stood in Hot Springs for 30 years, said if a shutdown were to occur again they would not be taken aback as much as the first one, and they would comply because the safety of the store’s employees and guests are a priority during the pandemic.

“In terms of finances, all of your revenue comes to an immediate halt, so we have been trying to put some other avenues in place, should that happen again to us, because the last time we were taken a little by surprise,” Marcus said. “This time, if it were to happen again, I think we do have a few things lined up so that we would be able to generate some revenue outside of our traditional brick and mortar business, which is what we use to generate most of our revenue.”

She said they have spent their time coordinating with their toy vendors to be able to offer goods and services to customers in different delivery methods so they will be able to “weather the storm” more effectively than they did in the first shutdown.

“We’re hoping that it won’t happen, but we’ve been trying to get ourselves prepared in case it does happen,” Marcus said.

“I don’t think in our 30 years of business,” she continued, “it ever occurred to us that something like a pandemic could completely shut us down for two or three months at a time. We have weathered natural disasters, like when we had to close after the 1990 flood … but we never really thought about something like a pandemic. So, now that we have lived through that, we really had to go back and take a look at our business plan and think about how we would handle a second closure.”

Marcus said during the first shutdown, her store was able to utilize financial relief programs like the Paycheck Protection Plan loan and the Arkansas Ready for Business grant.

For a newer store like Buffalo Clothing Company, which has been located in downtown for nearly two years, owner Jess Elder said another shutdown would devastate her store’s sales.

“In April we didn’t have to fully shut down and we still lost, probably, 80% of our sales for the month,” Elder said. “A full shutdown would put us solely through Facebook sales and Instagram; and kind of social media sales would be all we had and we just don’t get a lot of sales through that since we are a tourist area. In-person sales are what makes up probably 95% of our sales on a normal time.”

During the last shutdown, she said her business was able to utilize financial relief programs like SupportSpaCity and the Paycheck Protection Plan loan.

“There’s not really a way to prepare for losing all of your customers,” Elder said. “So there’s nothing really to do to prepare, other than just try to be quick at going to social media sales. … We’ll be open until we’re told to close, and from that we’ll be online for people to keep shopping.”

Cole McCaskill, president of the Downtown Association of Hot Springs, helped spearhead the SupportSpaCity financial relief program during the first shutdown.

While local businesses may currently be going through trying times, McCaskill said locally owned businesses help form the “character” of the city, and it’s important to continue to support local small businesses right now.

“Think how boring it would be to live here without your favorite restaurants and places to shop,” he said. “When you shop at a locally owned business, 68% of that money stays in our community. It circulates through other businesses, schools and churches impacting the people who are your family, friends and neighbors.”