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By Kurt Bresswein | For lehighvalleylive.com | Posted Dec 23, 2020
Restaurants in Lehigh, Northampton and Warren counties are invited to apply Christmas Eve for Restaurant Relief Fund grants from the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce.
The initiative has $150,000 available for 100 $1,500 grants, said Jessica O’Donnell, executive vice president for the chamber.
It comes as Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf on Wednesday proposed spending $145 million in a worker’s compensation fund to help the state’s businesses cope with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
For the chamber’s fund, applications will be accepted 9 to 10 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 24, at lehighvalleychamber.org/restaurantrelieffund.html.
Priority will be given to restaurants that did not receive assistance the chamber offered in early spring at the start of the pandemic.
“That program was for all small businesses, but this one is restaurant-focused because they’ve definitely been impacted, the industry, with some of the current mandates and mitigation out there,” O’Donnell said Wednesday.
Pennsylvania restaurants are among businesses banned for three weeks until 8 a.m. Jan. 4 from conducting indoor business, beyond takeout. In New Jersey, restaurants are among businesses subject to 25% capacity limits.
The chamber has been working closely with Lehigh and Northampton counties on which businesses have yet to receive assistance during the COVID-19 crisis, O’Donnell said. Chamber staff have been reaching out to them to make sure they know about Thursday’s window to apply for some help.
The money is intended to help restaurants with rent, payroll and other operating expenses. Its source is $100,000 from the chamber’s cash reserves along with support from funding partners Capital Blue Cross, Boyle Construction, Embassy Bank, Fromm Electric and Dellicker Strategies, according to O’Donnell.
The state’s shutdown of indoor dining, aimed at stemming the recent spike in COVID-19 cases, coincides with what is restaurants’ typically busiest time of the year, when friends, families and companies would ordinarily be gathering to celebrate the holidays.
“We’re calling it kind of like the Christmas miracle coming out, and businesses will know here in the next couple of days after we get the selection committee together” if they are awarded funding, O’Donnell told lehighvalleylive.com.
At the state level, Wolf’s $145 million assistance plan requires a vote from the Republican-majority Legislature to appropriate the money, and there has been no deal to accomplish that.
The Democratic governor said he wants the money to go out in the form of grants to businesses that have been most harmed by the COVID-19 pandemic, among them restaurants, bars and gyms.
House Republican spokesman Jason Gottesman blamed Wolf’s policies for the pandemic’s effect on businesses and urged him to lift those restrictions. It’s unclear whether legislative Republicans will bite on the governor’s idea; the General Assembly returns to work early in January.
Melissa Bova, the vice president of government affairs for the Pennsylvania Restaurant and Lodging Association, said that the industry will ultimately need more than $145 million, and that 50% of her organization’s members will close in 2021 without financial assistance.
“It’s a step in the right direction,” Bova said. “We think the industry needs a lot more than $145 million, but $145 million is a step and we need the Legislature to now come together and finally help this industry.”
The state money is in the Insurance Department’s Worker’s Compensation Security Fund. Wolf and lawmakers recently tapped into the fund for $185 million, to balance the delayed 2020-21 deficit-riddled budget that passed in November.
The fund, financed by premiums on workers’ compensation insurance policies, ensures claims are paid if an insurer becomes insolvent. Wolf said the law requires the fund to have at least $500 million, which it will even if the $145 million is spent on coronavirus response.
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