OPEN-DOOR POLICY

By Fred Groh

FRUSTRATION...

“Certainly, I got phone calls where people were just downright pissed—and I get that—but all in all they really did say, ‘This is the hand that was dealt to us, let’s play it in the best way possible.’ I think they did a great job,” said Ohio executive director Jenny Martin-Clarke.

It was the middle of June when we chatted, following almost ten weeks of bowling center closure in Ohio, March 18-May 26. A “frustrating,” “maddening” time for Martin- Clarke and for BPAA executive directors across the industry.

As in some other states, bowling in Ohio was misclassified under COVID-19 operating and reopening restrictions, Martin-Clarke said. It was grouped with travel and tourism, which included major attractions like zoos. “We were adamant that is not where we belong.”

At one point, state authorities announced that noncontact sports could resume. “We thought, well, what’s bowling if not a non-contact sport?” remembered Martin- Clarke. “We thought that was good news, only to find out we were not included. So we decided to start a grassroots campaign.” On May 15, a complaint number was posted on the association’s Facebook page urging calls to the governor’s office and reaching out to legislators to reopen bowling centers.

The week that bowling was given its reopening date, Martin-Clarke said, she spoke with a member of the statelevel committee overseeing the lockdown of sports “because he was a cousin to one of our proprietors. I don’t know if that

helped. I believe that our grassroots, our bowlers, our employees— I saw so many who said that they emailed and called—I really believe that’s what did it.”

The story was much the same in Iowa, where bowling was grouped with amusement parks, and fitness centers were allowed to reopen while recreational venues were not.

Jenny Martin-Clarke, Ohio’s ED

...AND TUSSLE

“I helped write a letter to the governor, once we got into May,”

Iowa ED Bev Van Blair related, “telling her how we could reopen safely and we desperately needed to get reopened or we would lose a lot of businesses and a lot of jobs in our state.”

The letter, over the signature of Iowa association president Phil Torgerson, was sent on May 17. Governor Kim Reynolds answered on May 19. “A couple of days later, she announced that we would be able to open on May 29. We [had] talked to a lobbyist and we were just getting ready to talk to take further steps.”

Further steps were taken in North Carolina. The bowling association there filed suit against Governor Roy Cooper, charging him in a 28-page complaint with unconstitutional use of discretion, issuing orders that “violate the right to enjoy the fruits of one’s labor,” violating equal protection of the laws, and unconstitutional suspension of state laws.

A hearing in the suit was a week away when we talked with Reneé Dennis, ED of the association for the Carolinas and Georgia (BPACGA). “The bars and gyms have filed a lawsuit along with us and under the executive orders we were included with them in the lawsuit to begin with,” she said, “but we felt we stood a better chance filing a lawsuit by ourselves.”

An hour after our talk, Dennis emailed us a one-line message with an exclamation point: “SC Gov just opened bowling centers immediately!”

In Michigan, among the states worst affected in the epidemic, ED Bo Goergen was a couple of hours away from a call with the lieutenant governor.“I submitted a question to be asked. We have documentation where four doctors from around the state, that supposedly have our governor’s ear, did a ranking on the [infection] risk-level of activities and [scored] them from 1 to 10, ‘10’ being [the] high[est] risk.”

In a survey of 36 activities from hair salons to sports stadiums, the

doctors rated bowling ‘5.’ “The argument we have is that there are industries with ‘5’s and restaurants with ‘6,’ one with a ‘9’—bars. ‘6’s and ‘9’s are able to open up in the rest of the state at 50% capacity, and bowling centers are not,” Goergen told us. The survey was published June 8 by MLive Media Group, a Michigan newspaper chain (mLive.com).

Of the executive directors we talked with, Yvonne Bennett of Wisconsin sounded like she was riding highest. Her good mood followed political back-andforthing that began with the Democratic governor being sued by the Republican House speaker and Senate majority leader on his Safer At Home mandate that was to run until May 26. The state supreme court ruled the governor’s order invalid, “so as of roughly 3:30 on Wednesday, the 13th of May, our state was wide open. We had no limitations, no social distancing, zero,” said Bennett.

Bo Goergen, Michigan's executive director

FROM YOUR ED’S DESK

“Bart Burger and the guys at BPAA called it the wild, wild West up here and it really has been since Safer at Home was struck down.”

“Once we were shut down,” said Iowa’s Van Blair, “I mostly fielded phone calls from proprietors to make sure they had the applications for financial aid that the government was putting out, that BPAA was forwarding, mostly about PPP.”

“PPP [Paycheck Protection Program] and EIDL [Economic Injury Disaster Loan] were hot topics,” Martin- Clarke of Ohio agreed. “I spent hours trying to understand those things, and it would seem that the next day [they] would be changed, trying to keep up with that information and pass it along to our members.”

Projects were moved to back burners, like the Iowa Games, where about 500 bowlers participate. “We rolled it back a couple of months,” Van Blair reported. “Grand Prix tournaments, we had a small one this weekend and now we’re having our state finals in the middle of July.”

At Carolinas/Georgia, Dennis postponed, then canceled this summer’s QubicaAMF Rising Stars tournament, in which 1,400 youths bowl across all three states. “The kids had to bowl and receive their scholarship money before Aug. 1 because they go back to school,” and there wasn’t time to get the tournament in.

All that required paperwork, letters, verifying averages, reading and posting to Facebook, and emailing.

Wisconsin's ED Yvonne Tison Bennett

ON YOUR MIND

Proprietors were surveyed by Wisconsin’s Bennett (on April 30 with a follow-up on June 8) and Ohio’s Martin-Clarke (on May 14) about their concerns more than a month past lockdowns. The number-one issue about reopening in both surveys: “lack of business.” Or as Martin-Clarke explained, would it make the best sense to stay closed until fall leagues?

In Wisconsin, the second-ranked problem was social distancing. Said Bennett: “Our average bowling center is 12 lanes, and 70% [of our members] have 12 lanes or less. If I’m going to social-distance every other lane or pair of lanes, I only have six lanes or three pairs to bowl on. The other part of the issue is that even though they may have their center laid out for social distancing [six-foot separation], the people coming into their businesses largely don’t feel they need to socialdistance.”

In the Ohio survey, proprietors were asked how much longer they could survive without the risk of bankruptcy or permanent closure. Six to eight weeks, they replied most frequently (36%). Not a surprise, about half were ready to open “ASAP” (55%).

Wisconsin respondents agreed with that. “We had some good direction that some of our centers would reopen as soon as they could,” Bennett said. “Those that have reopened have done it very responsibly, out of utmost concern for their employees and their guests.”

And some proprietors may have been cheered up by their leagues. In Ohio, Martin-Clarke noted, “A few centers I talked to have leagues that wanted to finish to support their centers. [The centers] opened up, allowed their leagues to come back and bowl, and then closed for the summer.”

A number of associations crafted their own reopening guidelines “to present to the governor or COVID team or whatever,” as Dennis put it. For her Carolinas and Georgia centers, a guidelines project was spearheaded by BPAA pastpresident Nancy Schenk of North Carolina and New York owner Joe LaSpina.

Iowa’s letter making the case for bowling to the governor included 15 operating requirements the association was proposing.

In Ohio, guidelines drafted by a task force of the bowling association were sent to the governor on April 22.

“Our lobbyist received a text message, a thank-you for contributing these,” Martin-Clarke said.

“However, as the process went on, the governor made up work groups of industry-specific experts to advise on how to open things up. We requested to have a representative on one of those committees or have our own bowling committee, [but] that didn’t happen, and our multiple requests went unanswered.” So Ohio’s grassroots campaign was born.

Wisconsin joined a coalition organized by the state’s chamber of commerce, which is also the largest business trade association in the state. The bowling association put its name and support behind the coalition and worked up risk-

Renee Dennis, ED of the association for the Carolinas, and Georgia

mitigation requirements for centers in case bowling was to reopen in phases.

INTO THE FUTURE

For Michigan’s Goergen, who is also a proprietor, the top problem as bowling centers reopen is going to be the restoration of consumer confidence. Leveraging PR by Taylor Global, via BPAA, he issued an op ed piece to four Michigan newspapers, “beginning that process.”

“The number two concern—it could be number one in most proprietors’ minds—is we need to be at 100% [capacity] by Sept. 1 when leagues start. When we open up, as other states have shown, we’re going to be limited to the amount of capacity that we’re allowed.”

Six of the eight COVID-related districts set up in Michigan are in phase four of six reopening phases; the other two districts are in phase five. Georgen is still trying to get all Michigan bowling into phase five, where centers are allowed to operate at 25% of house capacity. “There isn’t a business in the world that can operate profitably at 25%,” but that’s better than nothing, which is what the rest of Michigan bowling was enjoying when we talked with him.

As to staffing when centers reopen, Bennett said, “With the smallest centers, staffing isn’t relatively a problem. It’s mom and dad and some kids. But at our larger centers, staffing has been an issue because of the federal pandemic unemployment compensation, FPUC, that gives receipients an extra $600 on top of their state benefits.

“I’m full-time and I have two part-timers,” explains Bennett, “and one of my part-timers didn’t want to come back because she is getting regular unemployment and $600 and that’s way more than she makes as a 20- hours-a-week employee.

“Roughly 30% of our respondents said that staffing has been a problem. I know bowling centers that have curtailed their hours. They’re good business people and they’re going to limit their hours to what they can staff and cover. They may have wanted to be open seven days a week, now maybe they’re only open four or five.”

Dennis runs two centers in North Carolina. She has lost five staff people to other jobs “because we’re not open. Your staff is collecting unemployment and making more money than they would be [while] working for you.”

Iowa's ED Bev Van Blair

PAYOFF

“Our guys and gals are slowly reopening here in Ohio,” Martin- Clarke summed up. “My phone traffic has died down considerably since they’ve been allowed to reopen. They’re getting busy.”

In the sketch we drew from talking with the EDs in this article, the

darkest days of the epidemic are receding fast, if at last. It was a confusing and trying time where good customer relations are likely to pay off as never before.

On Michigan’s private Facebook page for members, they were asked: “With bars and restaurants opening this past Monday, what has been the turnout?” A thoughtful Goergen said, “A couple mentioned it was slow and a couple of more proactive ones have shown great response. I think it’s all about the recognition within your community. Whether you’re getting support from your community or not, and how you market it.”

Except for two Bowlero centers, everything in Wisconsin membership is mom-and-pop including two chains of three and seven centers. “They’re familyowned and [they have] family relationships with their community,” Bennett said. “To the extent that I have a family relationship in my community with my guests, I think they are more comfortable knowing and trusting [the proprietor to provide safe premises]. I think that relationship in a community makes a difference on the comfort-level of people coming back.” ❖

Fred Groh is a regular contributor to IBI and former managing editor of the magazine.