Chester Borough Mayor Asks For Help To Save Main Street

CHESTER, NJ - The new coronavirus, or COVID-19, outbreak has brought businesses large and small to their knees in recent weeks and Chester Borough Mayor Janet Hoven wants help in saving her town's 90-year-old main street.

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In a weekly conference call with members of Governor Phil Murphy's staff, Hoven said she asked for Murphy to consider lifting the prohibition of what are referred to as “non-essential retailers” of providing curbside delivery of their goods.

Currently, grocery stores, restaurants, liquor stores, garden centers and others can provide this service, but “non-essential retailers” cannot.

"I’ll characterize the response I received as not empathetic or positive. In fact, I was so fired up that I shot an email off to all three of the staffers that very evening presenting a plan to simply let the retailers deliver goods to customers cars; place the goods in the back seat, wear masks, and require goods to be prepaid," Hoven said. "I have not received a reply."

Hoven is asking that residents and business owners send an email to the Governor and the staffers if they agree that the curbside restriction should be lifted from these retailers.

The email addresses are:

• Governor Murphy: https://www.nj.gov/governor/co...
• Rob Field, Senior Aid to the Governor: Rob.Field@nj.gov
• Jesus Alcazar, Senior Aid to the Governor: Jesus.Alcazar@nj.gov
• Mike Delamater, Director of Intergovernmental Affairs: Mike.Delamater@nj.gov

"For 90 years, Main Street has been the heart of the Borough. Through the years it has been the home to the Borough Hall, Post Office, professional offices, a grocery store or two, a hardware store, a barber shop, just about anything you can imagine that provided goods and services to the residents of Chester and beyond," Hoven said. "If you were to walk down Main Street today, you would see stores that have now been closed for over a month. The window displays, in some cases, stuck in time. We have a deep concern as to how many of our small businesses and retailers will survive this economic shutdown, whether the business is on Main Street or one of the locally owned shops in the malls."

Hoven noted that she is not not advocating for the store to be opened to the public at this time, just to allow for curbside pick-up.

"Please help us save Main Street," she said.

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