CT House GOP Urges Coronavirus Relief For Bars & Restaurants

CONNECTICUT — House Republicans have announced they will introduce legislation to help the state's bars and restaurants recover during the coronavirus pandemic.

"The bars and restaurants on our main streets are critical to local economies, drawing people to our communities and nearby businesses while providing vital income for thousands of residents," said state Rep. Vincent Candelora, House Republican Leader-elect, in a news release Wednesday.

The minority caucus said their legislation, focused on bars and restaurants, hope to:

• Establish a $50 million targeted pandemic relief grant fund for those with qualifying monetary losses;
• Install year-long suspensions of liquor permitting fees, and food licensing fees for certain restaurants;
• Delay by 90 days the due date for municipal real and personal property tax payments;
• Direct the state's Department of Economic & Community Development to partner with financial institutions to create a low interest loan program.

"By and large the businesses fortunate enough to remain open have followed the state's often cumbersome guidelines every step of this journey, in many cases spending significantly to reinvent how they operate, only to find that their government hasn't matched their effort," said state Rep. Holly Cheeseman (East Lyme), ranking member of the Finance Committee. "We can and should change that immediately. More than 600 restaurants have closed—this is an issue that should unite all of us, and I'm hopeful for a bipartisan push toward recovery by a re-engaged legislature."

Gov. Ned Lamont teased that a long-awaited second round of federal aid may get the green light this week, with $45 million in pandemic relief released to municipalities soon. The announcement came after he and other governors met via web conference with President-elect Joe Biden late Wednesday afternoon.

During a keynote address at a virtual luncheon meeting of the Middlesex County Chamber of Commerce earlier in the day, the governor said he has authorized ten thousand $5,000 grants to small businesses which are "going out as we speak."

Another $25 million, part of a new small business grant program, is set to disbursed within a week, Lamont said. The amount would not be enough to "take care of everybody," but is targeted for businesses "like restaurants, who are really struggling."