opinion
Since COVID-19 hit, we’ve prioritized lives over livelihoods. That’s as it must be. Lives lost to the virus can’t be brought back with a low-interest loan, nor can businesses exist without customers. That said, our community’s health and the health of our small businesses are connected in vital ways. Ignore either one, and all of us suffer.
Kenn Dranoff understands this better than most. The owner of Mr. D’s Tees, a wholesaler and manufacturer in Warminster, Dranoff has been in business for 40 years: through good times and bad times, but nothing like these times. That’s because a significant part of his business comes from the special events and rites of passage that have now all but disappeared. Sweet 16 parties. Spring Fling. Summer camp. Conferences and trade shows. Move-in Day at college.
Dranoff has now added masks, gloves and other pandemic-related paraphernalia to his wholesale line. He doesn’t expect his business to recover until 2022, but thinks it will survive. He’s hoping the same for the companies he’s built such long-lasting relationships with. In so many ways, they’re all in this together.
Unlike large retailers and other chain businesses, small businesses are often located in or near our town centers. That is part of their unique value proposition to communities. But — like the coronavirus itself — even the loss of one key business can be infectious, leading to the loss of others nearby, sucking the vibrancy from entire downtowns.
In that regard, Central Bucks, where I live, has been fortunate. Many (though by no means all) of our downtowns have bucked the trends that have hollowed out Main streets elsewhere. The reasons include tourism, a shop-local ethos and an interesting mix of one-off stores and eateries. But “small is beautiful” becomes “small is vulnerable” in a downturn, let alone a once-in-a-century pandemic. Many of these businesses are family-owned and operate on thin margins in the best of times.
Sharad Patel and his family have owned and operated the Main Street Inn in Doylestown for more than 20 years. One of the few budget-friendly lodgings in the borough, Main Street did a steady business thanks to the conferences, weddings, art shows and bicycle races that brought people to town. That was then. Now it’s people who missed their rent payments or lost power in the tornado who fill his rooms at a discount. Not exactly the kind of happy events that made the Patels’ business tick.
The true measure of our small businesses isn’t the size of their receipts or payrolls. It’s the pieces of communal life that disappear when they’re gone. People who know your name or your child’s; who know you like your tuna on rye or your birdseed with hot sauce to foil the squirrels. In normal times, we don’t think too much about these brief encounters that give us a sense of place. We take them for granted. Until a “For Rent” sign goes up in the window where the Boar’s Head ham or bestsellers used to be.
“When things appear as if they are falling apart, often they are actually coming together. We will get past these times and survive,” Mr. Patel said recently. In the meantime, he noted, “A lot of people are suffering, and would just like to be heard.”
We need to hear them. And act. As the virus continues to upend lives and livelihoods, we need to call on Congress to pass RESTART, a bipartisan proposal that would give small businesses the flexibility and longer-term support they need. Likewise, our legislators in Harrisburg need to answer the governor’s call for more grants and loan forgiveness. Because the health of small business is everyone’s business.
A former small-business owner, Marlene Katz is the Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania’s House District 29, which includes Buckingham, Warwick and Warminster townships and the borough of Ivyland. Katz lives in Buckingham.
