BERLIN – Questions and comments surrounding Delaware’s efforts to restart its economy highlighted a virtual town hall meeting this week with members of the eastern Sussex County business community.
On Monday, the Delaware Division of Small Business and the Delaware Prosperity Partnership joined with state and local representatives and local chambers of commerce to host the first of several recovery town hall meetings using the video conferencing platform Zoom.
These recovery town halls – focused on several regions within Delaware’s three counties – kicked off this week by collecting feedback from eastern Sussex County businesses and employers that will inform the state’s recovery efforts.
“Having a healthy community is really important first before we can have a fully healthy economy …,” Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long said. “We are all working for a recovery that is smooth.”
By and large, most of the business community’s comments this week surrounded Gov. John Carney’s phases for restarting the economy. The proposed phases will be implemented as the number of positive COVID-19 cases decline for 14 consecutive days and as the ability to treat COVID-19 patients in hospitals without crisis care improves.
“Think of this as the platform we are working from,” said Kurt Foreman, president and CEO of Delaware Prosperity Partnership. “If this is sort of the dance we have to do, how would you all feel and how would you be able to operate within those parameters?”
Several participants highlighted their efforts to keep employees and patrons safe as their businesses reopen. Those measures included installing ultraviolet lighting in gyms, improving sanitation practices and transitioning to touchless and cashless procedures, among other things.
For some small business owners and organizations, however, the governor’s guidelines came with more questions and uncertainties. As the summer season approaches, many highlighted the challenges of reopening businesses in the expected phases.
“At our location down at the beach, we rely heavily on tourists,” said Gina Hall of Energy Gym in Selbyville. “I’m sure there are a lot of businesses on here that would attest that if this goes into June and July, our summer is basically ruined financially.”
Grotto Pizza’s Jeff Gosnear questioned if there would be specific guidelines on dining room occupancy and bar operations. He said restaurants needed to prepare now for any reopening.
“Are our dining rooms going to have to be 50% occupancy? Are we going to have any way of doing any type of bar business? Are we going to have to put things like dividers in between all of our tables or booths?” he asked. “Right now, we have a lot of people we could be using to prepare for this … It’s not something we can do overnight.”
Kaisy’s Delights owner Thierry Langer said restaurants could practice social distancing guidelines and continue to serve the public by closing roads, creating pedestrian streets and increasing outdoor seating.
“A major problem is how to practice social distancing and run our business where we can still make a profit …,” he said. “I think that’s a way to have local industries survive and make it even more attractive.”
Lyn Shoop of Dewey Beach Rentals questioned if limitations and restrictions would differ between short-term rentals and hotels as bans are lifted.
“Opening a single-family home would be different than opening a hotel …,” she said.
Damian DeStefano, director of the Delaware Division of Small Business, said officials would take those concerns into consideration.
“I think we are mindful, whenever we do anything, of creating competitive inequities in the system between business owners in a particular sector …,” he said. “It’s an unintended consequence we would like to avoid whenever possible.”
While the governor’s proposed phases highlight the state’s path to economic recovery, some pointed out that it did not include a timeline for opening its beaches.
“I’m also wondering, at a macro level, how the state of Delaware is looking at the summer tourist season and if you are doing that in coordination with the state administrations from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia,” said Mariah Calagione of Dogfish Head.
Foreman said Delaware and other surrounding states had established a dialogue group to discuss the coming summer season.
“We want to make sure we don’t cause trouble for each other or surprise each other and cause problems,” he said, “but to talk about the summer in aggregate form and the pieces that involves.”
Monday’s town hall meeting included more than 300 participants and generated hundreds of online comments from the coastal business community. As officials continue to hold virtual town hall meetings, people are encouraged to submit their ideas for reopening the economy by visiting de.gov/economy.
“I think the more input we have from the business community as we put these things together, the better our plans are going to be, the higher the level of compliance and the more buy-in there will be from the business community,” DeStefano said.
