Sean C. Morgan
Business is good for some and really bad for others in Sweet Home as local merchants and service providers deal with social distancing guidelines and requirements handed down by state officials in an attempt to slow down the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.
Some businesses, such as Amazon and Wal-Mart, which provide online sales are ramping up and hiring. So is Safeway, which had a sign out front last weekend announcing that it was hiring. Others are cutting hours, laying off employees or closing down, including White’s Electronics.
Hard-hit are local establishments like the Rio Theatre, which is shut down for the next two months.
Steelhead Strength and Fitness owner Dave Bauer announced Saturday morning that he was closing the gym in response to state mandates.
Restaurants have had to close dining rooms and move to a takeout-and-delivery model based on orders from the governor.
Some businesses have been reserving hours open only to customers most at risk from the coronavirus.
At the Rio and Roxy Theaters, owner Thomas Baham was posting “Closed” messages on his marquee last week.
He said studios have pulled all movies, so he can’t get any.
“It looks like the earliest movie is going to be the end of May,” Baham said. “That means we will be shut down for at least three months.”
The coronavirus shutdown is particularly ill-timed, considering he had just replaced an expensive projector and made some improvements to the theater, he said, wryly.
“I wish I could figure out something else to do to make money, but there’s nothing else out there.”
If the restriction on public gatherings over 25 is lifted, studios have offered “their whole arsenal” of archived films, “so I could do old movies,” Baham said. “If they lift the ban, we could have movies like “The Hobbit” or “Lord of the Rings.”
He’s also open to people who want to rent the theater for private events, such as a “family gathering,” he said.
“I hate to say doom and gloom, but we have a big mortgage with no money coming in,” he said. “If I knew this was going to happen, I would have held onto the money and not fixed the projector. That’s what kills me.”
Meanwhile, retailers have been busy, especially with groceries and sanitary supplies. Empty shelves is the norm now for toilet paper and paper towels. Can redemption is currently suspended.
“Things are looking good,” said Thriftway Manager Chad McDonald. HE said business “started to heat up” Thursday, March 12, as news began spreading that Linn County had its first cases of COVID-19.
“Everything was gone Friday,” particularly products associated with COVID-19, toilet paper, disinfectant wipes and peroxide, he said.
“People came in and they bought (a lot of) stuff,” said Casey McDonald, also a manager at the store, and that made the weekend rough.
Stores are facing delays refilling the shelves. Bi-Mart had signs posted during the week explaining that they are attempting to refill the shelves. The store ran a front-page ad in the Eugene Register-Guard Sunday advertising for temporary help.
Prices are rising in some cases. Chad McDonald said his price for eggs had doubled. While Thriftway raised its retail price, it didn’t raise it by the same amount.
Eggs have been popular, but they still remain on the shelves, McDonald said. The same goes for produce, especially potatoes.
Flour and sugar shelves were empty this weekend in both grocery stores.
“Their shopping habits were different,” Casey McDonald said of the customers. “They were buying sustainable stuff.”
People have been buying the things they needed to bake bread, for example, he said. Yeast was sold out at Thriftway Friday but was back on the shelf Monday.
Also popular have been dried beans and rice, pasta and canned goods. The shelves aren’t empty, but they’re picked over, with unstocked gaps, and bread shelves have been hard hit.
Large Albany retailers listed items they were out of on whiteboards over the weekend. Those included cleaning supplies, cold medicine, and disinfectants, along with toilet paper and face masks, as well as the basics the McDonalds noted.
Suppliers have been divvying up supplies among the stores and delivering as they get them, retailers said.
Garry Burks, owner of Santiam Feed and Garden Center, said the last two weeks have been “extraordinarily busy.”
Customers have been purchasing “the regular things, but a little of it,” he said.
The truck that delivers his feed supplies usually arrives mid-week, he said, but last week he was told it would arrive Saturday,
“Hopefully, they will have plenty of product,” Burks said.
He said customers had cleaned him out of most of his chicken feed and there was higher-than-normal demand for garden vegetable seeds, though “it’s that time of year.”
“Also, feeding the wild birds – that’s a big thing,” Burks said, noting he was about out of birdseed as well.
Sunshine Industries, which provides jobs to adults with disabilities, has been closed. The nonprofit provides janitorial and grounds maintenance.
On Friday, staff were hoping to open on a limited basis for 25 to 30 of the organization’s 85 clients, who earn wages for their work.
Under the plan, small groups of clients, no more than three to five each, will be assigned to staff members, and those groups will not interact, said Executive Director Brittany Donnell. The teams will be composed of those clients who are least at risk from the coronavirus.
Sunshine also will offer some day services outside of the building, with day trips to secluded places, she said.
“We felt that it was aligned with our mission to make sure we’re doing as much as we could,” Donnell said. Staff members who have been displaced will use their personal time off and then turn to unemployment.
Sunshine will comply with whatever directions come from state authorities, she said. Sunshine staff know there is assistance coming, but they don’t what it will look like at this time.
Dan Dee Sales’ experience was an “extreme uptick in guns and ammo,” said owner Jack Legg. “It filters down to magazines, then the general stuff around the house, freeze-dried food. Overall, we’ve definitely been busier.”
Demand is definitely different than the normal day-to-day for the store, which sells outdoor sporting and work supplies, Legg said. “I don’t think I’ve seen near the work clothing and work boots going out.”
Background checks for guns are long right now, he said. Friday, there were 2,092 people in line, and checks were taking upward of 24 hours. It’s been running at 2,000-plus all week.
He said one customer was about 1,700 deep in the line Thursday evening, but his background had been completed that night.
Legg said he’s seen the wait time reach six to eight hours in the past.
Around the store, “we’re cleaning multiple times a day,” Legg said. Staff members wipe down the pin pads, doors and other surfaces frequently, and the constantly wash their hands.
Spoleto’s Italian food restaurant is already geared up for the new paradigm, delivering and selling to-go pizzas, but it’s also facing new competition in that arena, with the restaurants across the city closing dining rooms and switching to a delivery and pick-up model.
“My main concern is trying to keep our employees working,” said manager Christine Nyberg. They’re mainly single mothers and college students.”They don’t deserve this.”
Her employees are really stepping up, she said, and they’re taking care of each other.
“The girls here are trying to figure out how to share day care,” Nyberg said. The college kids are giving up their hours to the single moms. One employee who is on Social Security benefits is giving up her hours for the same reason.
“They’re really the unsung heroes of this,” she said. “We’re definitely going to have to adjust hour hours,” but “we’ll never turn away customers.”
In the past couple of weeks, business has stayed about the same as usual, she said. Customers seemed nervous, and delivery orders picked up a little while lunch business fluctuated and then started dissipating.
Evening business remained normal while overall deliveries continued to pick up, Nyberg said. The closure caused some shockwaves, but the shutdown of the Oregon Lottery was a big problem.
Lottery sales help pay the bills and make payroll, she said. While deliveries remain strong, the restaurant is definitely down to a skeleton crew, with people on call.
The conditions are “changing daily,” Nyberg said. “You’re having to adjust on an almost hourly basis. We’re taking it day by day, hour by hour.”
She acknowledged Travis Luttmer, an agent with Willamette Valley Country Financial, for stepping up in support of his community.
He bought a stack of gift cards from Spoleto’s and The Point Restaurant to give to his customers as form of marketing and to support local businesses affected by the coronavirus outbreak, Nyberg said. “I just wanted to walk across the counter and give him a great big hug. The spirit in which he did this is absolutely inspiring.”
Luttmer, who works out of Albany, told The New Era that his fellow agent, Jamie Eriksen, did the same thing at Casa de Reyes. Other agents went in together to do the same at restaurants throughout the region, including Linn, Marion and Polk counties, “giving back to local restaurants to help support the community. What we can do is reach out to local businesses and help them stay afloat right now.”
While it hasn’t impacted his insurance business, “there has been an impact in the way we’re doing business,” Luttmer said. Now, agents are meeting clients via Skype or by phone.
The Sweet Home Gleaners closed their thrift shop last week, said Director Lisa Pye, asking that people hold off on donations until the social distancing guidelines are lifted.
The Gleaners will continue distributing food and commodity boxes, Pye said, “but it will be distributed in a different manner.”
Recipients will need to call ahead to let staff know they will drop by to pick up their boxes, Pye said. Boxes will be placed on a table in a designated area. After a box is picked up, the staff will sanitize the table for the next recipient. Distribution will be on Fridays from noon until 2 p.m.
Call the Gleaners at (541) 367-3190 or contact Pye at (541) 405-8863 for further information.