Thread: In my role with @LeftoversYYC, I’ve talked to dozens of restaurant owners in Calgary over the past 4 weeks. I also own a small business — a spa that employed 15 Calgarians a month ago. @SomaCalgary
IMO rent deferral is simply not enough, we need rent relief. #yyccc #yyc
Many small + medium-sized biz owners in Calgary have seen their revenues go from thousands of dollars per day to zero dollars per day. Rent deferral is a band-aid solution. It just pushes the problem down the road.
Let’s take my biz as an example. My spa is making $0 per day. My rent is nearly $7,000 per month. If my rent is deferred for April-June, in June I will owe $21,000. Pretty hard to pay this if I’m making $0 from April-June.
Many small businesses have personal guarantees signed on their leases. This allows landlords to send notices of default, going through trustees, and eventually bankrupting the biz owner.
Personal guarantees are common for first time tenants. Guess what? Many members of Calgary’s small biz community are first time tenants. Myself included.
If we want small businesses to come out of this pandemic alive, we need the Government of Canada to step in. We need a federal backstop that would see relief for property owners from banks for the months businesses are closed. That relief would then be shared with tenants.
This is not meant to be doom and gloom, but small businesses are the backbone of the Canadian economy. We need all orders of government to come together and take action to ensure their survival. #yyccc #ableg #cdnpoli
We can come out of this stronger. We will come out of this stronger. But...small businesses across Calgary, Alberta and Canada need help. And we need help now.
You can follow @lourdesmjuan.
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