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February 12, 2021by krghospitality krghospitality No Comments

On the Menu for 2021: The RESTAURANTS Act

On the Menu for 2021: The RESTAURANTS Act

by David Klemt

Much like restaurants themselves, the RESTAURANTS Act has faced multiple starts and stops.

The bill received huge bipartisan support in 2020, landing dozens upon dozens of co-sponsors.

However, that widespread support didn’t materialize into any actual progress—the bill was never signed into law. That must change now.

A Long Road

It’s February 2021. The House and Senate must work together to provide the targeted relief of the Real Economic Support That Acknowledges Unique Restaurant Assistance Needed to Survive (RESTAURANTS) Act.

The RESTAURANTS Act was first introduced to the House of Representatives on June 15, 2020. The bill was eventually included in the revised Heroes Act, which was passed by the House on October 1, 2020 on a vote of 214 to 207.

Unfortunately, that bill was “dead on arrival” and didn’t receive a vote on the Senate floor. A $900 billion stimulus package was negotiated in December of 2020 but the RESTAURANTS Act wasn’t included in it.

It has been more than long enough—it’s beyond time for action.

Where are We Now?

Throughout all of this, from inception to current status, the Independent Restaurant Coalition (IRC) has never faltered in their campaign to ensure this industry receives the targeted relief it so desperately needs.

It’s wise given how the number of times we’ve been let down by our elected officials to be guarded and cautiously optimistic about the RESTAURANTS Act finally being signed into law this month.

On February 5, Senators Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), and Representatives Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) formally (re)introduced the RESTAURANTS Act to the 117th Congress.

What’s in the Bill?

In its current form, the RESTAURANTS Act:

establishes a $120 billion relief fund for foodservice and drinking establishments;
makes groups that operate up to 20 units eligible for relief from that fund;
provides operators access to grants of up to $10 million for eligible expenses; and
makes the grants retroactive to February 15, 2020 and ends them eight months after the legislation is signed into law.

New provisions in the February 2021 RESTAURANTS Act include:

updates to the award calculation based on annual loss from calendar year 2020 instead of quarterly;
grant eligibility for new restaurants that opened after January 1, 2020;
paid sick leave as an eligible expense for employees, with a bonus amount to cover the cost of voluntarily providing ten days of sick leave to employees;
providing the Department of the Treasury the discretion to help reduce waste, fraud, and abuse;
imposing reporting obligations on the Department of the Treasury to share who gets loans and demographic information about recipients; and
ensuring that restaurants can use both the Employee Retention Tax Credit and the RESTAURANTS Act grant program, provided they are not used for the same expenses.

What’s Next?

We must all act to give the RESTAURANTS Act the best chance of becoming law. We have been patient for long enough.

We must let our representatives know we expect them to pledge their support for this bill formally.

The IRC provides several methods for ensuring our representatives understand they need to co-sponsor and pass the RESTAURANTS Act:

Email your representatives and ask them for their co-sponsorship.
Call your representatives directly and tell them why restaurants and bars need the RESTAURANTS Act to be voted on, passed, and signed into law. This is the number to dial: (202) 224-3121. The IRC has provided talking points here.
Share the graphic below on your social channels and encourage your followers to also contact their representatives and ask them to co-sponsor the RESTAURANTS Act. Use the following caption when posting: It’s official: the RESTAURANTS Act of 2021 is on the menu in both chambers of Congress. Call your representatives today and tell them that independent restaurants, bars, and workers can’t wait any longer for direct relief: 202-224-3121 #SaveRestaurants

All of that will take less than 20 minutes. That’s not a lot of time to help finally get this industry the support and relief it needs.

The RESTAURANTS Act is needed to prevent more permanent restaurant and bar closures, and to revitalize the industry. The road to recovery is a long one and getting this bill signed into law is a major step forward.

Please email and call your representatives. Please share the post and caption above on your social media. Please help save the restaurants, bars, and millions of people they employ.

Image:

December 20, 2020by David Klemt David Klemt No Comments

“More help is on the way.” But not for restaurants and bars.

“More help is on the way.” But not for restaurants and bars.

by David Klemt

Speaking about the economic relief package, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) struck what can be generously described as tainted altruism.

“More help is on the way,” said McConnell on the Senate floor on Sunday. He also took the time to attempt to absolve Republican leadership of any blame for the glacier-paced movement forward on relief, laying the fault at Democrats’ feet.

To be blunt, both parties have failed the American people and small businesses in terms of providing federal assistance during the pandemic.

After months of inaction on relief—with the exception of a Congressional vote in September that failed to pass in the Senate—and weeks of discussions and partisan sniping, negotiators finally managed to zero in on a bill with a strong likelihood of becoming law.

Yet sifting through remarks made by some politicians regarding pandemic relief over the course of the past several months, variants of the word “prompt” were bandied about.

If the package passes—which is expected to happen later today—members of Congress and Senate will no doubt perform self-congratulatory victory laps for finally doing their jobs after months of failing to do much of anything in the way of relief. Meanwhile, millions of Americans will continue to face life-altering challenges, reaching out for lifelines that are simply not there.

Included in the package are a number of details identified as “key” to both political parties:

The ability for businesses that had received Paycheck Protection Program loans which had been forgiven to deduct the costs said loans covered on their federal tax returns.
Speaking of the PPP, it will be reopened with over $284 billion intended for small businesses.
$12 billion in available PPP funds for minority-owned and “very small” businesses.
$15 billion made available in PPP funds specifically for independent movie theaters, live music venues, and cultural institutions like museums.
$600 stimulus checks for qualifying adults (and each child in a household) who earned $75,000 or less in 2019. The amount would be reduced for people who earned more. Those who made $99,000 or more last year are not expected to receive a stimulus check.
A $300 boost to unemployment benefits for 11 months, with a possible implementation date of December 27.
Gig and contract workers enrolled in the PUA or PEUC programs can expect the same $300 boost to their benefits for 11 to 13 weeks.
The deadline to spend billions of dollars made available to cities and states via the CARES Act is expected to be extended from the end of this year to be an entire year.
$25 billion in emergency assistance for renters.
A moratorium on evictions expected to be extended through the end of January.

What’s not in the package expected to be rushed through Congress? Hundreds of billions of dollars in state and local aid Democrats wanted, liability shields for corporations Republicans wanted, the $120 billion RESTAURANTS Act, or the $240 billion Restaurant and Foodservice Industry Recovery Fund.

Despite McConnell’s declaration that federal assistance is on the way, the economic relief plan leaves an industry that employs millions of American workers and contributes hundreds of billions of dollars to the nation’s GDP (four percent before the pandemic) to fend for itself.

Guy Fieri, in all seriousness, has done more for more unemployed restaurant workers than the government, raising more than $21 million in relief funds in under two months.

The hospitality jobs lost due to Covid-19 aren’t expected to return. With more than 110,000 restaurants closed—and counting—the economic impact will be felt nationwide and, in all probability, have global ramifications.

The PPP turned out to be an absolute farce: billions of dollars went to businesses that are anything but small by definition. There’s little reason to believe the process will improve much (if at all) this time around.

And while restaurants and bars have been crucial to nurturing community, connections and culture since inception, they’re clearly not considered culturally relevant institutions by politicians.

With Congress facing an uphill battle in terms of drafting the language for the relief bill and then voting on it, expecting our elected officials to propose, negotiate, draft and vote on a bill for the hospitality industry seems foolish. That means the earliest the industry can expect help—which seems exceedingly unlikely to ever materialize—is in late February of 2021.

Apparently restaurants, bars, and the foodservice professionals they employ aren’t key to politicians on any side of the aisle. Well, not until they need venues to host their campaign fundraisers, that is.

Image: Andrew Seaman on Unsplash

December 3, 2020by David Klemt David Klemt No Comments

Competing Stimulus Plans Fail to Include RESTAURANTS Act

Competing Stimulus Plans Fail to Include RESTAURANTS Act

by David Klemt – 12/3/2020

Talk out of Washington, D.C., about yet more stimulus relief package negotiations is making one thing starkly clear: We’re on our own.

There’s no help coming, not from the federal government.

Unfortunately—but perhaps unsurprisingly—it appears the bipartisan support the RESTAURANTS Act received in Congress was an exercise in optics. The result? Fleeting hope.

Without a signature from the president, it doesn’t matter that Congress voted to pass a revised HEROES Act two months ago. Lest anyone forget, the last time a meaningful Covid-19 relief package was signed by the current president on March 27 of this year.

Another way to put that is that our elected officials haven’t managed to pass a stimulus package signed into law for 251 days. They did, however, find the time for a week-long recess for Thanksgiving.

It was announced just two days ago that a bipartisan group of congresspeople and senators had negotiated a $908 billion stimulus package. The intention was to strike a middle ground between Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) desire for a $500 billion package and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) proposed $2 trillion-plus bill.

Yesterday, multiple sources reported that the $908 billion—which apparently didn’t include the RESTAURANTS Act—was dead on arrival.

Of note, at least to me, is that Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) is reported to have mentioned that this week’s touted bipartisan package had been negotiated “over pizza or pasta at people’s houses.” I have to wonder if the pizza or pasta was prepared, provided and delivered by restaurants that are among the hundreds of thousands facing permanent closure if the government doesn’t actually act in a meaningful way.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, on his way to a House committee meeting, reportedly said, “The president will sign the McConnell proposal that he put forward yesterday, and we look forward to making progress on that.”

From what I was able to glean, the RESTAURANTS Act isn’t included in McConnell’s bill either. Neither are stimulus checks nor a federal boost to unemployment insurance payments. Supposedly it does include an extension of the problematic Paycheck Protection Program (PPP); liability protection for schools and businesses; and a $332 million grant for theaters and live venues.

If the tone of this article comes across as angry, I freely admit that’s an accurate assessment. The RESTAURANTS Act was first introduced to Congress on June 15. Elected officials have had 171 days to help the hospitality industry.

The industry that employs more than 16 million people—11 million of which are employed by independent restaurants. The industry that generates well over $760 billion in annual sales. The industry that accounts for 3.5 percent of America’s GDP. The industry that has for years provided venues, food and drinks for elected officials’ countless re-election campaign fundraisers.

The industry that, should tens or hundreds of thousands of restaurants close their doors permanently, will shed millions of jobs that will not return.

And that’s just what’s happening to the industry in the United States. The industry is similarly at extremely high risk for irreversible devastation in Canada and throughout the world.

So, yes—I’m angry. I’m angry that the millions of jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars this industry contributes just to America apparently don’t mean much to government officials.

I suppose I can only blame myself for holding out hope that the RESTAURANTS Act would be signed into law. After all, the president, speaking about restaurants back in March, said, “they’ll all come back in one form or another,” adding, “It may not be the same restaurant, it may not be the same ownership, but they’ll be back.”

They won’t be back. We’ve already suffered permanent closures. There was no prescience—or empathy—in the president’s statement. Let me make this clear: I’m not laying all of this solely at his feet. America’s politicians on all sides have failed the hospitality industry and therefore millions of Americans.

Restaurants, bars, lounges, nightclubs, hotels… This is an industry that consists of incredibly resilient people. There comes a point, however, that even the most resilient need help.

As hospitality professionals fight to return to their feet, bloodied and battered from countless blows, it doesn’t seem that the government is in their corner. Nothing would make me happier than to be proven wrong, but we’ve been at this crossroads for months now.

Image: Caleb Perez on Unsplash