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Small Business Owner On Deciding To Close Permanently: 'It Makes Us Angry’ | NBC News NOW - YouTube
Channel: NBC News
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as of the beginning of 2020 I had three
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fully functioning restaurants and the
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Pagan club was annex 15th year and you
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know we were still operating and no
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reason to you know to be closing those
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doors other than what's happened in the
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past few months small businesses have
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been clobbered by the corona virus
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pandemic due to stayed home orders a
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small online presence or high overhead
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costs many businesses have had to close
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their doors for good we just looked at
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the numbers for that and it became clear
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very quickly that that was not a
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business that was going to be able to
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recover and so we just saved ourselves a
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lot of time in agony and gave it a very
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sad and unceremonious you know goodbye
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and it makes us angry you know for for
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not just a business that we had to close
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but for the the interruption of the
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success that we were experiencing from
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decades of hard work and we were very
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good at what we do and it's it's
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devastating and it's sad and it it makes
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me angry to lose all of this overnight
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many others could face the same fate
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according to a survey by Main Street
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America 7.5 million small businesses are
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a risk of closing in the next five
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months the for business owners we spoke
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to employed 30 people now they're out of
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work seventy-five percent of our revenue
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people coming in to the tasting room and
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drinking beer there it was pretty
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obvious to us get to the challenges that
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we already faced that there was no way
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our business was gonna survive this so
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relatively easy decision for us to make
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you know even though everyone is either
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laid off or furloughed at this point and
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keeping an eye open to see how I can
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help
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surviving regardless of whether everyone
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in the business I want to make sure that
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everyone's okay so I own an elopement
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and small wedding company and Savannah
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Georgia we had a space called the
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Savannah cozy Chapel where we did very
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small but he's license signings groups
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of 20 or less who wanted to celebrate in
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private in a specific kind of place it
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wasn't necessarily just a financial
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decision it was about being able to
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protect my entire business but the
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saddest part about what will be lost is
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the space that we created if you process
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this emotionally 33 years of business
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and now your store has disappeared your
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business is gone in the blink of an eye
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you know if you ever had gone through
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you know losing a parents or anybody
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close to you where you know you have to
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then go and empty out the apartment that
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was exactly how I felt small business
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layoffs are now showing signs of
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leveling off those layoffs spiked over
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1,000% back in March and furloughs
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jumped 138 percent from March to April
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that's according to data from human
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resource provider gusto but gusto says
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in the last two weeks of April some
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small businesses started bringing their
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workers back here's what some of those
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business owners are going through in
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their own words between all three
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businesses were down almost 90 percent
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in sales in revenue making it very
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difficult to proceed we can't close the
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doors as a family-owned business my
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brother and my dad my little sister all
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work here and we're trying to keep it
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going
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we've been in the parking lot since 1992
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so we've been around for 28 years we
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don't want to lose it
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like many of you we had to make the
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difficult decision to close our doors
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about two months ago we actually made
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the decision before the orders were put
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in place by our governor in the state of
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Pennsylvania and we made that decision
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just because there were so many things
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out of our control and we've tried to
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hire back as many of our employees as
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possible some don't want to come back
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too soon they're safe enough we had
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contact free pickup to be able to get
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food to go to try to build our sales
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even with all these efforts we are still
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operating at 90% I do have some concerns
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I mean something is and I don't think
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this is minor but something as simple as
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is disinfecting our office the way our
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office is set up we're going to have to
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pivot and transition and change the way
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that we offer services to our clients
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mental health is a very intimate
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experience and having a brand clients in
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and and really provide services with
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masks on and not be able to see as many
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people in one day because we have to
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make sure the offices or sterilize so
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we're gonna have to change the whole
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structure of our business Cohen didn't
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end they didn't go away and people
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aren't coming back out for us to be back
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to 100 percent revenue down be 100
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percent revenue going for
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that does not make up for the one
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hundred eighty-six percent of revenue
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that we've lost and since March 8 so we
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need a broader vision a bigger vision
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how to actually bring this back together
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and truly save the small business
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without it the small businesses are
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going to disappear hey NBC News viewers
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