Schumer: Restaurants eligible for COVID-19 relief grants approved by Congress
Early in the pandemic, Lucy Domingo, owner of Cafe Il Villaggio in Baylon, would pace the floors at night, worried what the next day would bring.
Would she and her husband, Mike Domingo, the restaurant's co-owner and head chef, be able to make payroll? Would they need to layoff members of the wait staff? And when would they be able to reopen their doors at full capacity?
"It rocks your world because this is our world," Domingo said at a news conference Monday outside her restaurant hosted by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who announced the COVID-19 relief package that cleared the Senate on Saturday includes $28.6 billion in grants for eateries. "When they shut us down we had to sit down and say 'How are we going to survive this?' "
While Il Villaggio refocused on takeout and the wait staff each agreed to work one less day apiece to prevent layoffs, the restaurant — like most others on Long Island — struggled, losing about 40% of its revenue.
But with the Senate's passage of the American Rescue Plan — the House is expected to approve the legislation later this week — Lucy Domingo said she can finally breathe easier.
"It gives you the opportunity to say 'OK, I don't have to absorb all of this myself,' " said Domingo, who plans to apply for the funding.
Across Long Island, more than 82,000 restaurant and hospitality workers lost their jobs due the pandemic, along with another 140,000 in New York City.
Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Monday urged area restaurants, bars, catering halls, brew pubs, taprooms and tasting rooms to apply to the Small Business Administration for relief dollars.
Funding is to be available to restaurants with 20 or fewer locations and can be used to offset expenses from Feb. 15, 2020, through the end of 2021, including payroll, benefits, rent, utilities, maintenance, cleaning equipment, food and other operational costs.
"If we are going to put a fork in this pandemic we've got to help our struggling restaurants," said Schumer, adding that the program could be extended if funding dries up and the pandemic is still raging.
The program provides up to $5 million per restaurant or $10 million for a restaurant group. A total of $5 billion in funding is reserved for restaurants with less than $500,000 in gross receipts in 2019 during the first 60 days of the program.
The restaurant relief program follows a first-of-its-kind $15 billion SBA grant program for shuttered concert halls, independent movie theaters and other live entertainment venues, established by Congress and signed by then-President Donald Trump on Dec. 27.
But while the SBA has issued guidance to potential applicants it has yet to begin accepting applications for that program, also championed by Schumer and known as the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program.
"The SBA is building the SVOG program from the ground up and working expeditiously to ensure all the mechanisms required by law and the federal grant application/awarding process, as well as front-end protections, are in place to ensure these vital grants are delivered to those the law intended to assist," said agency spokesman Matt Coleman.
The SBA's experience with the Shuttered Venues program, which could begin accepting applications in the coming weeks, will allow them to move quicker with restaurant relief, Schumer said.
"It will be much quicker for the restaurants," he said. "Hopefully within a month."
Restaurants across Long Island, which are currently limited to 50% of capacity, can begin operating at 75% capacity beginning March 19.
With James T. Madore
Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.
