EATER SF: The Coronavirus Crisis Could Permanently Close 30 Percent of California’s Restaurants

The California Restaurant Association (CRA) is urging the state to extend small businesses’ tax returns and payments to help aid losses related to the COVID-19 global pandemic. 

As reported by EATER San Francisco, the state’s most powerful restaurant lobbying group sent a letter to Governor Gavin Newsom explaining that the state’s ongoing shelter-in-place order could cause as much as 30 percent of the state’s restaurants to permanently close “unless there are bold measures taken by the state.” 

In the letter, the CRA asks for Newsom’s “immediate help with the following proposals targeted at our industry during this time of uncertainty.” Those proposals include a pause on planned increases to California’s minimum wage, changes to insurance laws to ensure payouts for closed businesses, postponing property-tax payments and deferrals for sales and payroll taxes. 

The letter, however, doesn’t ask for cash — and that’s what restaurants need the most these days, says Laurie Thomas, the acting director of Bay Area lobbying group the Golden Gate Restaurant Association (GGRA) and owner of Cow Hollow spot Rose’s Cafe. Speaking with Eater SF, Thomas says that “what we want is money, and we want it as soon as possible — ideally grants, not loans.”

And don’t assume that a local restaurant doesn’t need the dough just because it’s busy with delivery and takeout. Stacy Jed, the president of the GGRA and the owner of Bluestem Brasserie, tells Eater SF that restaurateurs she’s spoken to who have shifted to takeout and delivery are making so little money — barely enough to cover labor and food costs — that it seems the decision to stay open is “not a business decision, but kind of a morale decision.”

On March 30th, Newsom agreed to an extension for small business tax returns and payments, allowing restaurants to put off most of their fees until July. 

Read the full article at sf.eater.com.