As small businesses struggle to get help, they urge community to ‘buy local’
Now more than ever, folks must “buy local,” a group of local business leaders agreed during a conference call with Rep. Harley Rouda (D-Laguna Beach), as they tried to allay fears about the future of the local economy amid the coronavirus outbreak.
The conversation Wednesday afternoon focused on small businesses’s access to loans through the Small Business Administration. Rouda said his office is trying to intercede at the federal level for the Orange County business community and its workers.
Rouda represents the 48th Congressional District, which includes Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach, Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, Seal Beach, Laguna Niguel and parts of Garden Grove, Midway City, Aliso Viejo, Santa Ana and Westminster.
“This is a unique moment in our country’s history, where no one has the answers,” Rouda told the callers. “We value your input, especially as a businessperson, in clearly understanding the challenges you face representing the business community.”
Many businesses around the county have closed temporarily to prevent the potential spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.
Furniture chain IKEA announced that all its stores, including the one in Costa Mesa, were closed effective Wednesday. On Monday, Costa Mesa economic powerhouse South Coast Plaza announced it would be closed for two weeks after a store employee at the mall tested positive for the virus.
Other businesses have adjusted their hours or changed to online-only shopping.
Walmart will offer special hour-long senior shopping for customers 60 or older every Tuesday an hour before the stores open. It begins next Tuesday and is scheduled to last through April 28.
During Wednesday’s conference, questions and suggestions poured in from area community leaders. A representative of Golden West College in Huntington Beach called for continued support for students with Pell Grants should the school year be extended. Nonprofit leaders asked where they could access emergency funding.
Many times, though, Rouda’s response to callers’ questions was simply, “We don’t know yet.”
“When we look at ... how that’s going to impact businesses such as restaurants’ and bars’ ability to reopen, it’s hard to say with any certainty right now,” Rouda said.
Two of his main goals for helping small businesses, Rouda said, are to secure loan availability for them and provide funding for employees who are laid off or otherwise not working. One possibility is to provide low- or no-interest small-business loans through the SBA, he said.
Rouda agreed with a few callers who said the process of securing small-business loans should be easy and accessible, not tied up in bureaucratic red tape.
Memory Bartlett, president and chief executive of the Fountain Valley Chamber of Commerce, said most of the chamber’s members have fewer than 10 employees. Small and easy-to-get loans could substantially help the local community, she told the congressman.
Loans of $350,000 “might not seem like a lot when you’re talking about billions on a national level, but for each individual level, it could make a huge difference,” Bartlett said. “Anything you can do to lower that interest rate and streamline that process … would do tremendous good in our community.”
Local chambers of commerce said they are pulling together resources as fast as possible to aid the local business communities.
The Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce has created a new page on its website, newportbeach.com, to help diners find restaurants that are still operating and offering takeout or delivery.
The Corona del Mar chamber has a heavy focus on shopping locally, although President Linda Leonhard said she is considering holding back on mailing a just-completed village business directory because so many of the small boutiques and services that line CdM’s stretch of Coast Highway are closed.
“If they’re not even operational, marketing doesn’t do a lot,” she said.
Leonhard said legislators seem to have business’s best interests at heart and are sharing information as quickly as they learn it. “It’s uncharted territory,” she said.
Newport chamber President Steve Rosansky said he didn’t come out of the call feeling any more comfortable than before, but he appreciated some of the creative potential solutions. The Newport chamber also is keeping members up to date on resources such as low-interest federal disaster relief loans from the Small Business Administration, and staff is calling members to reassure them.
The only help staff might ultimately be able to provide is a friendly voice, Rosansky said.
A man in the printing industry who prints programs and other materials for local events said his accounts have dropped off a cliff as people cease gatherings, Rosansky said. The last of his customers was the Newport Beach Film Festival, which this week called off its April event. When he stopped by the chamber office, he cried “because all his business is gone,” Rosansky said.
“From an economic standpoint, this is easily six months to a year before any kind of normalcy is back,” Rosansky said.
Eileen Benjamin, president and chief executive of the Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce, agreed: ”We’ve got some tough times ahead.”
The chamber handled a swarm of panicked calls from members following Tuesday’s initial order from the Orange County Health Care Agency that some thought seemed to tell residents to shelter in place.
The county clarified Wednesday that nonessential gatherings outside the household, such as at concerts, theaters, gyms, conferences and sporting events, need to be canceled through March and that bars must close and restaurants can provide delivery, takeout and drive-through services but not dine-in. But it did not mean all businesses had to close and did not prohibit “essential public transportation, airport travel, shopping at a store, mall or farmers market or charitable food pantries and distributions.”
The Costa Mesa chamber rushed to disseminate correct messaging.
Despite the whirlwind, Benjamin championed a positive refrain: Support local businesses. Instead of turning to big-box brands for household necessities, shoppers can look for local alternatives that deliver or sell supplies available for pickup, she said.
“We just need to start thinking local and not just rely on Amazon but take care of our local businesses too,” Benjamin said. “If they can do it, let’s call local.”
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