Global lockdown causes an enormous impact for small businesses
During the past year, some small businesses have not been able to open their doors to customers
Closed: Countless small businesses had to lock their doors during the Covid-19 pandemic. Covid-19 has struck restaurants the worse. ¨Work has been definitely complicated, we are either dead silent and have nothing going on or we get a big rush and have a lot of people who want to come in, but we don’t have enough employees to have that many in the restaurant,” senior Aliyah Kavran-Peterson said. Many local businesses were forced to shut down permanently due to the loss of revenue during the last year.
Small businesses have been hurt from Covid-19 through the past year. From not being able to have their doors open, to only have so many in the facility. The economic shutdown caused by the pandemic has taken a painful toll on all businesses. From state to state the restrictions vary, in Washington State, for example, restaurants can have 50% indoor capacity as of the 22nd of March. This is opposed to last month when there was only a 25% indoor capacity limit. Despite how many people can be in a restaurant at one time there are also other guidelines that they have to follow. Some of these rules consist of no alcohol after midnight and a max of ten people per table. Some smaller clothing businesses also have restrictions, such as they can only have so many in the store and they have to be 6 feet apart. Some clothing stores aren’t allowed to have their dressing rooms open to the public on top of that.
Senior Aliyah Kavran-Peterson works at Lombardi’s in Everett. ¨Work has been more stressful because we have a very tight space, we don’t have as many tables and we don’t have as many people working at one time. Everyone is constantly running around trying to get things done,¨ Peterson said.
During this pandemic there was a recent survey stating that over 5,800 small businesses have closed, this was only from March 28 to April 4 in 2020.
From talking to students at Lake Stevens High School we realized how great of an impact this has done not just on the businesses but also the employees.
Senior Cristian Mata, a worker at Bruno’s Pizzeria in Lake Stevens stated ¨ The biggest change I’ve seen is everyone having to wear their masks and how we had to shut down our dining and using carry out only. Due to COVID, we closed a lot sooner so there weren’t as many hours available.”
On top of the small businesses, larger companies have also seen changes in their jobs. Senior Davin Stinger works at Burger King. ¨We are not getting as many customers due to them not wanting to go through the drive-through, so it’s a lot slower than it usually would be.”
Local businesses are good for the environment and also for the community. Small businesses are more likely to donate to local non-profit organizations rather than larger businesses. This is why contributing to small businesses also helps your community. If you can do your part, order to go from a small restaurant or order a sweater from a small boutique. Do your part and help out the small businesses near you, let’s do our part and try to get back to normal.
