AURORA, Colo. (KDVR) — The wait is hitting home for small businesses in the Denver metro area as lawmakers negotiate a second national coronavirus relief bill.
Friday, Rep. Jason Crow called a panel of owners from the Stanley Marketplace together to talk real impacts in Aurora, inviting FOX31 as the only TV station to join.
“The idea is you come here for one thing and stay for something else,” Stanley Marketplace Partner Mark Shaker said, adding “Our design for our marketplace, it is like the air has been sucked out of us.”
With capacity restrictions for retailers and no indoor dining allowed, holiday shopping feels different at the Stanley Marketplace.
“As retailers, we traditionally do 50% of what we are going to do the entire year during this time and it’s way down,” owner of Trunk Nouveau Stephanie Shearer said.
As lawmakers consider paycheck protection plans and loans, local small businesses told Crow they need grants instead.
“Forgiveness of that loan is contingent on bringing your staff back but your closed for indoor dining as we are now, there’s no way to justify bringing your staff back,” Annette restaurant owner Nelson Harvey said.
Owners also say relief loans granted in the spring were lifelines but they’re now running out, leaving businesses scrambling to come up with money to pay the government back.
“There is no money to pay these loans back, we need the federal government to focus on having us pay this money back when business is back,” Shearer said.
“This is a classic tension between D.C. and some of the bureaucracy that you come head-to-head with and what actually needs to happen on the ground,” Crow said, adding, “I’m just having as many of these conversations as I can to figure out these points of improvement.”
Crow says he’s planning to relay owners’ needs in D.C., to the Tri-County Health Department and the governor.