RESTAURANT RELIEF
Schumer talks federal aid for eateries in visit to Capital Region
ALBANY, N.Y. » U.S. Senate Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer, paid a visit to TORO Cantina in Albany to discuss federal relief for restaurants.
Schumer was joined by Jaime Ortiz, chef and owner of TORO Cantina, and Melissa Fleischut, President and CEO of the New York State Restaurant Association.
As part of the larger American Rescue Plan (ARP), the Majority Leader plans to include the Restaurants Act. Schumer explained the $25 billion dollar grant program will help the struggling industry survive the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Almost all of our restaurants are small businesses. I have huge sympathy for small businesses because my dad struggled in a small business,” Schumer said.
Along with the arts, Schumer noted how much restaurants are a fabric of local communities and how much they have suffered during the pandemic.
“They are the heartbeat of our main streets and sadly those local economies are on life support because restaurants are struggling. Just here we’ve had restaurants close that have really had people’s hearts, Grandma’s Pies in Colonie, Cornell’s in Schenectady, closed. We don’t need more of these restaurants closing,” Schumer remarked.
The Majority Leader went on to detail how stark the situation is for the restaurant industry in New York, citing a survey from the New York State Restaurant Association.
“54 percent of New York restaurants, more than half say that they will not survive in the next six months without more federal relief,” Schumer said.
“That would mean our economies would stay in a down more for years if we don’t do something. Restaurant employment in the Capital Region has been down 50 percent in the pandemic.
Pre-pandemic, the Glens Falls metro area had the nation’s fifteenth-highest density of restaurants, so that shows you how important it is. And some restaurants have about 80 percent of their revenues down,” Schumer noted.
Capital Region restaurant employment was down 47% in the second quarter of 2020 compared to the same quarter during the previous year. As Schumer detailed, pre-pandemic, the Glens Falls metro area (Warren and Washington counties) had the nation’s fifteenth highest density of restaurants, with there being 230 restaurants for every 100,000 people, compared to the U.S. average of 174 per 100,000.
The Glens Falls metro even ranked higher than the New York-Newark-Jersey City metro, which at 228 restaurants per 100,000 people ranked nineteenth in the nation. The Albany-Schenectady-Troy metro ranked 54th.
“We have already lost 3,833 restaurants in New York. That’s a lot. Think about how many jobs that is if the average is 20 people per restaurant?” Schumer added on the toll the industry has taken during the pandemic.
Listed below is how the program works and applies to restaurants of different sizes:
• Grant Maximum – $10 million per restaurant group, $5 million per individual restaurant
• Eligible Expenses – Payroll and benefits, mortgage, rent, utilities, maintenance, supplies including protective equipment and cleaning materials, food, operational expenses, covered supplier costs as defined by the SBA under the PPP program, sick leave, and any other expenses deemed essential by the Administrator.
• Covered Period – Grants can be spent on eligible expenses from Feb. 15, 2020, through Dec. 31, 2021, and the Administrator may extend the period through two years from enactment if conditions warrant.
• Set-Asides – $5 billion of the $25 billion total is reserved for restaurants with less than $500,000 in gross receipts in 2019 for the first 60 days of the program. During the initial 21-day period, the administrator will prioritize awarding grants to eligible entities that are owned or controlled by women or Veterans or are socially and economically disadvantaged businesses.
Schumer also noted those $5 billion in set-asides will aim to help smaller mom and pop operations.
The Restaurants Act would also make eligible food service or drinking establishments, including caterers, brewpubs, taprooms, and tasting rooms, that are not part of an affiliated group with more than 20 locations. Plus, the new relief fund will be designed to provide flexible grants that can be used to cover payroll, mortgages, or rent, set up for outdoor seating, PPE, paid leave, food and other supplies, or debt and other expenses.
“This bill in particular here at TORO Cantina would be helpful because we’re amongst a good amount of restaurants that opened outside of the timeline that would’ve qualified them for PPP loans,” Ortiz noted.
“I find that this is an overwhelmingly great thing for the industry. All of us that are really passionate about this business have been heartbroken by what it’s done to the scene of the thing that we’ve dedicated our lives to. It’s changed it in so many ways,” Ortiz continued.
“We’re struggling and keeping hope that it’s going to be back to what it was at some point, someday, so that we can be back in the world that we love to be in, taking care of people, making experiences for people,” Ortiz added on looking forward to the future.
Those sentiments and hopes were echoed by Fleischut as well.
“We are thankful for Senator Schumer and his advocacy on behalf of the state’s restaurant industry,” Fleischut said.
“We’re closing in on one year of struggling to make ends meet and scraping by just to keep our doors open. While some restaurants will never reopen, Senator Schumer’s direct grant relief fund, based on the bipartisan RESTAURANTS Act, is a sign of hope for the rest and will be vital to their long term survival. There is simply no way to make up for the billions of dollars lost by the industry without federal assistance,” Fleischut explained.
On a separate note during the press brief, Schumer announced the Department of Defense has approved GlobalFoundries Fab 8 site in Malta to make computer chips for the military.