ALBANY, N.Y. — Restaurant owners say they didn't go into business to end up asking the state or federal government for money.
"We just want to earn a living, employ our wonderful employees, bring everybody back to work, bring the community back to where it used to be,” said Caren Paterniti, owner of the Howling Rooster.
Yet they'll need more relief to get there.
For example, Brownie's Sports Bar and Tavern owner Stephen Brown was forced to close in early November. He says the restaurant plans to reopen sometime in the next month, if there's more help.
"The biggest thing is I'm tapped out for going to borrow anymore money. I'm done. I don't have anymore resources,” Brown said.
Brown says he has applied for the PPP loan again last Tuesday, but a week later, he still doesn't have it. He's also applied for a $5,000 Restaurant Recovery Fund grant, but is running into issues with that too.
So how can restaurants get more relief?
Several state senator Republicans including Senator George Borrello are now proposing pieces of legislation, which Brown says will help the restaurant industry.
"We do need the help. All this stuff that Senator Borrello put on here is great. It would be great if they all got put through,” Brown said.
The senators are proposing a number of measures including:
- Banning small businesses from getting penalized with higher unemployment insurance rates for making layoffs
- Providing a one-year extension of liquor licenses
- Offering interest-free loans and credit lines to small businesses
- Banning delivery services like Grubhub and Doordash from charging higher fees than they charged on or before March 1, 2020
- Giving small businesses additional time to pay monthly sales, payroll, business and property taxes
- Providing a 90-day grace period to pay any fees or penalties due to state and local agencies
- Redirect SLA-inflicted fines into a business relief fund to help small businesses get back on their feet
- Provide for a credit on liquor license renewals for the amount of time bars and restaurants were forced to be shut down because of the pandemic
- Create a limited state sales tax exemption for the sale of food and drink at restaurants and taverns from state sales and compensating use taxes and granting municipalities the option to grant such limited exemption
- Provide a tax check off box that will direct funds into a business relief fund
- Create an employee retention tax credit, modeled after the Federal Employee Retention Credit, to help employers keep workers on payroll
"This is a pandemic that was obviously not the fault of anyone but the policies that we've seen in New York State have truly crippled these businesses,” Borrello said.
Last week, the State Senate Majority passed legislation that would protect small businesses from several things such as eviction, third party delivery fees, the list goes on.
Two of them include measures the Senate Minority is proposing.
Sen. Sean Ryan's office says, "We are glad the Senate Minority is following the Senate Majority’s lead in addressing the needs of our small businesses. The Senate Majority will keep working to address the impact and fallout from the pandemic."
However, some restaurant owners believe the only way to really help is to get back to business as usual.
"We've been doing everything that they've wanted to do. So they should let us open 100 percent like they did back in June. Let us keep doing what we're doing because we are doing it well and we were bringing the economy back," Paterniti said.
