A plan to save our restaurants and hospitality jobs

I’m confident that Boston has the best medical care in the world, the U.S.A. has the greatest minds and resources, and we’ll beat the coronavirus soon. However, restaurants are in terrible shape, much worse than after 9/11 or the financial crisis. Some will never reopen. More than 100,000 restaurant employees lost their jobs. We need bold, quick action. Here’s the Great 8 steps to take immediately:

• Don’t exclude meals tax relief to restaurants that gross over $2.1 million per year. The bigger companies have more rent, more debt and many more employees.

• Waive the meals tax entirely from the time of the dining room shutdown to the time it ends. Charge no meals tax for the first 30 days back. We raised the meals tax several years ago from 5% to 6.25% state and zero to 0.075% local. Let’s lower the state tax to 5.5% and the local tax to 0.05%.

• Rescind any regulation passed in the past two years. Commit to adding no new regulations for two years. Eliminate the plastic bag ban and the bottle bill.

• Legislative committees must put forth a plan for these businesses to get help from landlords, banks and insurance companies. If not, the industry will collapse.

• Change the drink special rule from the requirement that a special must last seven straight days to three straight days. That way, restaurants can use specials to draw customers during the week without hurting their weekend sales.

• Slow the scheduled minimum wage increase: Freeze for two years, then allow five years for the rise from $12.50 per hour to $15 per hour. Freeze the tipped wage; tipped employees are guaranteed to get the minimum anyway, there’s no reason to force employers to pay more.

• Massachusetts should present fuller, clearer statistics each day so consumers can better understand the risk, such as: number of tests, number of cases, number of deaths (with attention to age breakdown of those) in contrast with the state’s population.

As soon as the federal social distancing policy ends, unless the government can articulate a mathematical, scientific reason why restaurants must remain closed more than supermarkets or liquor stores or retailers, the government should immediately reopen dining rooms and bars, bringing back tens of thousands of employees.

Restaurant owners and their hard-working employees were denied the most basic right, although it’s not specifically listed in the Constitution: the right to ply their chosen trade to make money for housing, food and the things we need to live. They deserve our help. They need our help. Now.

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Dave Andelman is CEO of Phantom Gourmet.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/39KE0Bj