CHICAGO (CBS) — A key Metropolis Council committee on Wednesday agreed to a plan to proceed to loosen rules for Chicago eating places and different companies into 2021, in an effort to present them a little bit of a monetary enhance through the pandemic.
Below a plan unanimously endorsed by the License Committee, each enterprise license and public automobile license that has expired or is about to run out between March 15, 2020, and June 15, 2021, will stay lively till July 15, 2021. These expiration dates have been prolonged thrice already through the pandemic, in accordance with Enterprise Affairs and Shopper Safety Commissioner Rosa Escareno.
Extending these license expiration dates once more will be certain that companies already struggling to outlive through the pandemic don’t want to fret about renewing their licenses through the difficult winter and spring months, Escareno mentioned. It additionally will save them hundreds of {dollars} within the coming months.
The town additionally will droop all late charges for expired enterprise licenses by means of the tip of 2021.
“With a purpose to present as a lot ongoing regulatory aid as potential for the companies which might be persevering with to expertise closures and plenty of harm throughout this pandemic, these measures must proceed,” Escareno informed aldermen.
Roughly 1,000 sidewalk café permits presently scheduled to run out on the finish of February 2021 could be prolonged till June 1, 2021, permitting sidewalk cafés to proceed working by means of the spring with out having to resume their licenses. The town additionally will proceed to scale back sidewalk café allow charges by 75%.
As well as, roughly 450 eating places and bars that had been allowed to increase their sidewalk cafés into non-public parking tons, neighboring companies’ sidewalks, or into streets closed to visitors will probably be allowed to proceed their expanded out of doors eating areas by means of the tip of 2021.
“As you understand, the power to function exterior has been a vital lifeline for the survival of … hundreds of eating places,” Escareno mentioned.
Below the town’s expanded out of doors eating program, companies had been allowed to increase sidewalk cafés onto neighboring non-public property or into the road, as long as they weren’t blocking any neighbors’ doorways or obstructing views from their home windows. Sidewalk cafés additionally couldn’t be expanded onto property owned by one other retail meals or liquor institution.
Ald. George Cardenas (twelfth) mentioned the aid efforts initially accredited by the Metropolis Council through the first wave of the pandemic have been a small however important lifeline for Chicago companies which were getting “killed by 1,000 cuts,” as a consequence of being compelled to shut or considerably scale down service in an effort to sluggish the unfold of COVID-19.
Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) mentioned the coronavirus stimulus invoice presently being negotiated in Washington, D.C., wants to incorporate aid for companies which have briefly closed, to assist them reopen down the road.
“After all, if a restaurant closes, they don’t simply get to reopen by flipping a change. It’s way more sophisticated than that. They need to restaff. Staff aren’t essentially going to hold round and wait, they may have moved on to different issues,” Hopkins mentioned. “Suppliers, purveyors, capital wants, reconnecting utilities; all of these kinds of issues are points that add to the problem for companies which have briefly closed that may finally wish to reopen.”
The prolonged aid measures accredited by the License Committee on Wednesday will now go to the total Metropolis Council for a last vote at subsequent week’s assembly.
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