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The Lake Champlain Chamber of Commerce is asking state officials to allow restaurants to open for outdoor seating of customers later this month.
In a memo sent Thursday, the chamber urged officials at the Agency of Commerce and Community Development to allow restaurants to reopen with outdoor dining options beginning May 22.
If approved, the restaurants would provide outdoor service “with proper accommodations for social distancing and other best practices,” according to the memo.
The chamber wants the state to provide $50,000 grants for restaurants to facilitate outdoor dining. It also wants officials to provide guidance to municipalities to ease local zoning regulations to make it easier for restaurants that don’t already offer outdoor service.
Austin Davis, a lobbyist with the chamber, said outdoor dining could provide some restaurants relief after they’ve been forced to remain closed, or offering only takeout or delivery options, for nearly two months.
“I think it comes down to you’ve got to do something,” he said. “And this first round of something, outdoor dining, can help some people.”
He acknowledged not all restaurants would benefit.
“For some folks, their business model is they need to have their entire floor plan occupied, or they don’t make their margin,” he said.
The Vermont Chamber of Commerce also believes that outdoor dining would be a “positive first step” for restaurants as the state looks to lift restrictions for businesses in the service industry.
“Outdoor dining is a wonderful fit to meet the need of space and safety and it’s a great way for restaurants to start that first quarter-turn of the spigot,” said Amy Spear, the vice president of tourism at the Vermont Chamber.
During his press conference Friday, Gov. Phil Scott said he wasn’t sure when restaurants would be allowed to resume partial business, but said the administration is considering allowing restaurants with outdoor tables to reopen.
“We want to open up the restaurants eventually,” Scott said.
“I would say those with outdoor seating would be probably, from a commonsense standpoint, would be the first to be able to do that because we know that being outside is better than being in a confined space,” the governor said.
The proposal has drawn a mixed response from restaurants.
Matt Willey, the owner of Ramunto’s and The Avocado Pit in Bennington, said outdoor dining would help some restaurants like his pizzeria, which have outdoor seating space.
But Willey, who is also the vice president of the Bennington Chamber of Commerce, said it would disadvantage others — like the restaurant across the street from him — that lack it.
“For me it’s great, I mean I do have a little bit of outside space,” Willey said. “But for some people they’re going to get buried because of that.”
Willey also worries that it might be difficult to get employees to return to work when many of them are now making more on unemployment benefits than they were at his restaurant.
He’s already had some trouble getting employees back to work at Ramunto’s, which is offering takeout and delivery.
“The first two people I tried to call back said no,” he said. “I mean they’re making $1,100 staying home. Why would they come back for $800 a week if they can sit home and make $1,100 a week?”
Mark Frier, the owner of three restaurants — The Reservoir in Waterbury and Tres Amigos and The Bench, both in Stowe — said he doesn’t think opening his restaurants up to outdoor dining alone would generate enough business.
“To try to say that we could survive just on that and takeout in just our normal fixed-cost scenario is probably unlikely,” Frier said.
He added that many restaurants without outdoor space wouldn’t be able to benefit from the change.
“I feel like that’s not necessarily leveling the playing field for the dine-in restaurant owner community,” Frier said.
When the state does decide it’s safe for restaurants to resume business, Frier said he would prefer that establishments have the ability to offer limited in-door dining, which would give “more businesses a shot at reopening.”
And when the restrictions are lifted, Frier also hopes the state will provide financial assistance to help with their accumulating expenses.
“If the state wants to make that decision, we hope that the state would come behind with some kind of understanding that we’re going to need some help to carry our fixed costs through that time period when we’re basically going to be suppressed in our ability to do business,” he said.
Rep. Matthew Birong, D-Vergennes, who owns 3 Squares Cafe, said that allowing restaurants to first offer outdoor dining is a “logical step.”
But he said that it’s important that the state provide grants to restaurants that aren’t already set up to offer outdoor seating, so that they can also generate revenue.
He suggested that restaurants should be able to set up tents in their parking lots, and work with municipalities to offer seating in parking spots, or public spaces.
“Everybody’s got to get creative with the next year or two,” Birong said. “Because traditional formats aren’t going to work.”
Restaurants are hoping the state will be able to provide relief dollars, and that federal requirements for aid they have received through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) will change.
Right now, loans through the program can be forgiven, but only if businesses rehire their employees within two months.
That poses a problem for restaurants that have received PPP loans, but have been unable to open up.
The Lake Champlain and Vermont Chambers of Commerce are pushing the state to provide financial assistance for restaurants from the $1.25 billion the state received from the federal CARES Act to respond to Covid-19.
The Vermont Chamber is lobbying for a grants program for restaurants. It also wants restaurants to not have pay the state the rooms and meals taxes they collected in February and March before they shut down. Due dates for those payments had already been pushed back to July 15.
In its Thursday memo, the Lake Champlain chamber pitched a program to state officials that would give restaurants grants equal to what they paid in rooms and meals taxes for six months of 2019.
“Investment to keep these businesses alive today will be repaid in future rooms and meals tax revenue for years to come,” the memo says.
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