HomeMy WebLinkAbout04-02-20 Public Comment - C. & M. West - COVID-19 and non-essential businessesFrom:Chris Mehl
To:Agenda
Subject:FW: COVID-19 and non-essential businesses
Date:Thursday, April 2, 2020 11:33:27 AM
Chris Mehl
Mayor, City of Bozemancmehl@bozeman.net406.581.4992________________________________________From: Rocky Mountain [info@mountaintoys.net]Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2020 11:15 AMTo: Chris Mehl; I-Ho PomeroySubject: COVID-19 and non-essential businesses
Hi Chris,Here is the email we sent to the County Commissioners. Thank you for hearing us out on this issue. The followingare the other suggestions/ideas that we came up with to help local non-essential businesses:
*Business downtown could use a local Courier (ex. Café Courier) to deliver merchandise in the area. This couldhelp with providing income (especially with Easter products we all may carry) and not have to pay the exorbitantprices for shipping of product to the local area through UPS/Fedex, Post Office. For example, for The ToyCompany to ship out a puzzle within the downtown area that cost us $10.50 to buy (retail $21.00) would cost $12.00to ship through UPS. We have had some customers willing to pay shipping but others not, it certainly isn'taffordable for anyone and we would lose money if we offered free shipping.
*Let local non-essential businesses do Delivery only if they adhere to strict sanitizing requirements.
*We are losing our local customers to Amazon- not at the customer's fault-because it is the only option right now.
Thank so much!Michele and Charlie WestThe Great Rocky Mountain Toy Co.
April 2, 2020To: The Gallatin County Commissioners
To Whom It May Concern,
We are writing to you to ask that you please enforce the mandates put in place by Governor Bullock in respect to thestay-at-home ordinance or at least make it very clear through public announcements, what exactly it means to be"closed" as a non-essential business. Does being "closed" mean non-essential businesses can still do curbside pickupand/or delivery? This mandate seems vague in that many businesses have completely halted all forms of businesswhile others have not.
We currently own The Rocky Mountain Toy Co. in downtown Bozeman and we shut our store down when theordinance was put in place on Saturday, March 27. Prior to that we had been doing only curbside pickup anddelivery from our store and the storefront was closed to customers. As of now, we are only shipping through UPSor US postal service as deemed appropriate. What we have seen from other businesses in the County is eithercomplete compliance or varying degrees of understanding of that mandate. Some non-essential stores are still doingcurbside pickup, some doing just deliveries or both (We understand that restaurants and other essential goods are
appropriate for these services). We would love to continue our business in this manner, especially since we were
sanitizing the products and delivering with sanitized hands to drop-off. This allowed us to maintain a relationship
with our customers and provide us with a small portion of our sole income but instead we did our duty by followingthe restrictions as required. It is frustrating that so many businesses continue to disregard this mandate. It seems asthough the actual wording of the mandate is vague and unclear as to what is truly being asked of businesses andwhat are the appropriate measures to take. We realize that the County Sheriff Office and County Health Departmentare dealing with so much more at the moment, making it impossible to police every business right now. It seemsappropriate, since we are dealing with a virus, that the County Health Department should be making the laws toabide by but they should be enforced and or made very clear in its terms by the County Sheriff and the City PoliceDepartment.
Free-market works when we are all playing by the same rules and there is a level playing field. It will not workwhen we choose our own interpretations of the rules without consequences. We as a city, county, state and countryall need to take personal responsibility in dealing with this crisis. Everyone is suffering already and we don't need tosuffer more at the hands of the greedy few. Would you be willing to appeal to Governor Bullock and ask thatcurbside pickup and delivery be available for non-essential businesses too? Or would you ask that the rules for non-essential businesses be spelled out in a clear and concise manner that we all could abide by or face consequences? We would appreciate some guidance and thank you in advance for your prompt reply. We would also like you toknow that we truly appreciate all that you are doing at this time during the pandemic.
Sincerely,Charlie and Michele West