When the first shutdown took effect everyone hoped it would be temporary. Fast forward 9 months and here we are with new pandemic measures in place.
Local business owners said they’re staying optimistic because they have no other choice.
“We don’t have another choice. I could be miserable or could be happy and I choose to be happy and to be optimistic for the future,” said Tom Duer, owner of Pittsburgh Fitness Project.
Until Jan. 4 Duer’s gym will stay empty. As of midnight Friday Gov. Tom Wolf ordered all gyms, casinos, and entertainment venues to close their doors and restaurants to stop indoor dining for three weeks.
Duer said he is finding ways to still meet the needs of his clients despite being closed. He’s offering pop-up boot camps, daily zoom coaching sessions, and he’s even lending out small equipment to members.
“The situation is so fluid, we just want people to be safe and healthy and if you’re sick you can’t get healthy in here,” he said.
The measures weren’t unexpected. These new restrictions come at a point when the commonwealth’s daily case numbers have increasingly skyrocketed and hospitals have become overwhelmed.
Duer said he has plans to use these three weeks wisely.
“I’m going to chose to look at it as a positive. We’re going to come in here and clean up a little bit, paint, make sure all of our backend operations for 2021 are really good and create new programs for our clients,” he said.
James Samreny, owner of The Oven in Wexford, said he is frustrated. There are 9-kids between him and his business partner, and they have no choice but to make it work...somehow.
“So, you give it all you got, you put in extra hers, you try not to cut you labor, you try not to send anyone home without a paycheck and you find a way. You find a way,” Samreny said.
Samreny says, the shutdown of indoor dining, which has been allowed statewide since June, will more than likely shutter a lot of restaurants. He says eateries that barely made it through the last 9 months of ups-and-downs cannot survive financially.
“I think any small business is going to see damage. Small businesses don’t have the bandwidth, the financial capital to withstand this. In my mind its by design that these small businesses are going to have to choke this down. Who’s was it Patrick Henry, ‘Give me liberty or give me death.’”
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