Page 7 - BusinessWest February 17, 2021
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 Raising capacity limits isn’t a cure- all to businesses’ struggles, of course, especially when the governor has moved in both directions in the past year, loosening restrictions only to tighten them again. But it’s a start.
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Businesses affected by the capacity change include restaurants, arcades and recreational businesses, driving and flight schools, gyms and health clubs, libraries, museums, retail stores, offices, places of worship, and movie theaters, to name a few. Work- ers and staff do not count toward the occupancy count for restaurants and
close-contact personal services. “Clearly, the restaurant industry
has been the most impacted,” Creed said. “With other business sectors and office workers, it’s easier for them to reduce their capacity limits because they can work remotely. And small restaurants have struggled the most — when you have six or eight tables to begin with, it’s not worth doing in-person dining if you have to scale down to one or two tables.”
While some sectors are struggling more than others, she added, most members she’s heard from understand the reasons for the state’s mandates, even when they feel they’re too strict.
“I’m not hearing people complain
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  Nancy Creed says businesses have become adept at pivoting and dealing with state mandates, but some, like restaurants, have been especially challenged economically.
 He did feel the weight of the restrictions during the state’s tax-free holiday back in August — when the store typically does about two months of business in one weekend.
“At that point, we were still at mini- mum capacity, and we did have to have a greeter at the door monitoring how many people were in the store at one time. We had some folks waiting outside or in their cars, and we had water for them.”
Still, Noblit added, “it wasn’t a huge issue for us, to be honest. I can imag- ine a retail store that sees a lot more foot traffic, like a small grocery store or a small drugstore — they’re more affected.”
No matter to what extent each business is affected by capacity limits, they collectively cheered Gov. Charlie Baker’s raising of those limits from 25% to 40% on Feb. 8.
For many operations just trying
to survive, every bit helps, especially when they’ve not only followed state mandates for keeping their work- places safe, but in many ways gone above and beyond, said Nancy Creed, president of the Springfield Regional Chamber.
“I have to give our business com- munity a lot of credit because when sector-specific protocols came out, and everyone needed to sanitize all these things to keep people safe, they stepped up to the plate, and did that at a lot of expense to themselves. They deserve a lot of credit.
“I really think it’s a testament to our community that the business com- munity said, ‘we want to be part of
the solution and not part of the prob- lem,’” she added. “I give them a lot of credit because they could have thrown in the towel if they wanted to.”
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