Small Winnipeg businesses fight to stay afloat, face backlash amid public pressure to close
'Everyone is relying on us to keep going,' says Miles Gould, who is keeping his restaurants open — for now
Manitoba businesses are being forced to choose between closing their doors or staying open and facing growing public backlash.
"If we don't open tomorrow, our cleaner won't come in and he won't be able to pay his staff, and he won't be able to pay his bills, maybe his mortgage, put food on the tables for his kids," said Miles Gould, owner of three Winnipeg restaurants and two coffee shops.
"From the cleaners, from our food suppliers, from our drinks suppliers, absolutely everyone is relying on us to keep going."
Gould employs about 150 people at the five businesses, and the decisions he makes impact the livelihoods of many more, he said.
On Thursday morning he said his restaurants the Grove, the Cornerstone and Blackbird Brasserie and the Canteen coffee shops will close.
"Decisions are being made every hour. What made sense yesterday afternoon doesn't make sense this morning," Gould said.
"We made the decision for the health and safety of all our staff and guests, as well as for the hope of being able to reopen and re-employ people in the future."
On Tuesday, Gould had removed tables in some of his restaurants to reduce the capacity to 50, in order to keep in line with the province's direction on social distancing. Still, he feared there would be public backlash for not closing the doors entirely.
"What my biggest fear is, people judging us on this," Gould said. "That we will maybe be taking the wrong choice here and we might end up having to close if we can't pay our bills."
He was partnering with Skip the Dishes and hoped that adding a delivery option for customers would help sustain his business while the province tries to figure out life after COVID-19.
'If you close your business, it hurts your employees'
Samantha Lacoste understands Gould's anxiety. She and her business partner had kept their hair salon open for several days during the outbreak, before finally making the decision to close their doors Wednesday night.
"If you close your business, it hurts your employees. It hurts your business. If you do stay open, then you're getting the community backlashing you as well. So there's really no right or wrong answer at this point," said Lacoste, co-owner of Samantha James Hair Salon.
The province is asking the public to limit close contact to 10 minutes, but has not directed hair salons, massage therapists or physiotherapists to stop seeing clients.
"It's a choice they're going to need to to make right now on how they can adequately ensure sick individuals aren't walking into their places. Frequent hand-washing, limiting waiting in areas," chief public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin said.
"This is evolving all the time, and if we see more and more community transmission, then our messaging can be more clear and more firm on those things."
'Will this be months?'
On Tuesday, Nonsuch Brewing Co. closed its doors temporarily and laid off 16 of its 24 employees.
The microbrewery opened in November 2018, and expanded to a restaurant and bar the following October. Six months ago, the owners signed a lease for an additional 5000 square feet of space.
"We were doing better than ever. We were absolutely on a big growth curve with lots, lots of momentum," said Matthew Sabourin, Nonsuch president and co-owner.
"So we were really, really excited about what the summer was going to mean for us … and now we're trying to understand what this will all mean."
Sabourin said unlike other restaurants, Nonsuch is also a microbrewery and it supplies beer to Manitoba Liquor Marts. The company is now in the process of creating a delivery service to try to sustain its business for as long as possible.
"When you're building a business plan, you don't say, 'What if there's a pandemic?'" Sabourin said. "Will this be months? Will this be weeks … quarters? We don't know and that's why we're trying to put our focus on all of the options that don't require people to come here."
Social distancing also has drastically reduced business for Botanical Paper Works. The eco-friendly company manufactures wedding invitations, bookmarks and postcards from biodegradable seed-infused paper that can be planted.
"People are on hold. Their events have been postponed, cancelled. They're waiting to plan an event so people aren't buying, so the inquiries that are coming in are dramatically reduced," said Botanical Paper Works CEO and co-founder Heidi Reimer-Epp.
She's been in business for 22 years and thought she'd seen the lowest point after 9/11, when business suddenly stopped overnight.
"I think it's going to be a really tough time for businesses that were already on the edge.… What we had learned when we came through 9/11 was that we need to have a buffer and we need to be prepared for the unknown and the unpreparable," Reimer-Epp said.
Reimer-Epp has already had to lay off a handful of people but is hopeful things will bounce back in time.
"That's the mental approach that I'm trying to take in, that I'm trying to share with all the staff too, is that this is temporary. So it's a temporary layoff and life will continue. I'm confident that we'll come back. [Business] will be stronger than ever. We just don't know when."
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