Help Wanted
Cinemapolis joined in sending a m e s s ag e t o t h e c o m m u n i t y during its extended closing. ( P h o t o b y C a s e y M a r t i n)
Businesses and workers desperate for assistance after COVID-19
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By M att Bu tler he rise of COVID-19 around the United States has been an incredible, fearsome thing to watch. It has laid bare some of the structural issues in America that impact vulnerable people every day, but which only seem to generate real outrage when they begin to reach beyond those demographics. Locally, plenty of people were already worried about what the underlying impacts of the virus would be on the Tompkins County economy, particularly with the closing of Cornell University and Ithaca College, both of which are now encouraging students to remain off-campus for the rest of the semester. Then over the last several days a series of announcements dealt serious blows to a variety of local hospitality and entertainment businesses: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidelines discouraging gatherings over 50 people until May 11; then Governor Andrew Cuomo asked non-essential businesses to voluntarily close; then Cuomo returned the next day to announce a tri-state agreement with New Jersey and Connecticut that would 8 T
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Ithac a Times
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close all restaurants, bars and other nonessential businesses likely to gather large crowds (a step that both Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick and Tompkins County Administrator Jason Molino said they had not considered enacting themselves); then President Donald Trump took to national television to advise that people refrain from gathering in crowds larger than 10. With bars closed entirely, bartenders are out of all hours, and the restrictions on restaurant mean they’ll likely start cutting worker hours if they haven’t already . While these closures are certainly prudent and do serve the public interest, that does very little to calm the fact that many of those workers will now face mounting bills with substantially less income, if any, to pay them with. “It is smart to do the right things for public health, that includes social distancing, and if that includes shutting down bars and restaurants and that’s what the experts tell us, then that’s what we should do,” Mayor Svante Myrick said. Since Cornell closed its doors earlier this month, Myrick has called for an immediate temporary stimulus to individuals to get people and businesses through the normally prosperous but suddenly barren 18–24 ,
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spring months. Those calls only intensified with the recent string of announcements. “But we have to be very aware that we’re creating an enormous hardship for a lot of people. There are a lot of people who work in those bars and restaurants, and they’ll not have enough cash to last a week, much less three months. [...] We need a direct stimulus now, we need checks cut and put into people’s pockets ASAP.” The entertainment industry will also face a significant downturn, primarily as a result of the gathering rule. Prominent local promoter Dan Smalls spent most of last week cancelling shows and only re-booking a few, while the State Theatre’s Doug Levine told the Ithaca Times that they are canceling all shows for the next several weeks and even beyond that. “All of our shows are wiped out at least through the end of April, and probably longer,” Levine said. “That’s obvious that it has a direct impact on my staff and the entire behind-the-scenes team. [...] The other thing that worries me is the impact on people’s, like, mental sanity. Many people come to, especially the State Theatre, to escape for a few hours. [...] I do fear that people are going to lose that escape.” It’s inevitably going to present some
rather difficult decisions for those venues in terms of how much staff they can justifiably keep employed and who can remain on payroll while expected income is fully halted. “Many hard decisions are being forced upon us,” Levine acknowledged, though he declined to talk about the State staff specifically. It’s equally complex, if not more so, for people who earn wages mostly through tips, like the aforementioned service workers and bartenders, and the people who employ them. Kate Conroy, the owner of the Rhine House bar on West State Street, had already made the decision to close their doors before the ban closing had been announced by the state. “Some people were nervous, some people weren’t, but we felt like we were contributing to a larger problem,” owner Kate Conroy said. “I’m glad that it’s becoming a wider thing now, because I do think it’s necessary, definitely.” But like others said: as wise as the decision might be, that doesn’t pay the bills. “Without any help from relief funds for small businesses or for certain industries, we wouldn’t be able to stay in business, “ Conroy said. “If it went on longer than
