YORK, Pa. —
Gov. Tom Wolf’s March 19 order to close all non-life-sustaining businesses has drastically changed the lives of those businesses’ owners.
“As of yesterday, I have no clients,” said Kristen Kennedy, owner of Kristen’s Cleaning Service.
Kennedy’s clients began to cancel appointments in late January, she said, as people became concerned both with the risk of COVID-19 transmission from another person in the house, and the cost of cleaning as others lost income due to COVID-19.
Kennedy and her husband now rely on income no longer coming in.
“[My husband]’s a disabled veteran, and then we have myself, and then we have three kids,” Kennedy said. “The bills don’t stop. It’s very anxiety-inducing.”
The Green Bean Roasting Company in York shut its doors on Friday. As a restaurant, they could offer takeout, but the owners decided not to risk any chance of spreading COVID-19.
“I’d rather get this all over with so we can move on,” said owner Jennifer Schreiber.
The U.S. has 30.7 million small businesses that employ 47.3 percent of the nation’s workforce, but nearly half only have the cash liquidity to operate two weeks without additional income.
Green Bean could survive a little longer, maybe two months, Schreiber said, but she fears a longer shutdown.
“It’s a complete, complete loss of business,” Schreiber said. “Any day where we go on where we’re not making any income at all, that’s a day that we might not be able to pay our bills.”
Gov. Tom Wolf admitted in a virtual update Sunday evening that extending the shutdown past two weeks was a possibility.
“We’re trying to buy time. At this point, we still are recording more new places each day, so we’re going the wrong way,” Wolf said during the update. “Initially it was two weeks. I want to see that curve start to bend and when that happens I’ll be the happiest person in the world to say we don’t need to do these draconian things anymore.”
After the state received an influx of waiver requests to the shutdown order, Gov. Wolf delayed the enforcement deadline from Saturday evening to 8 a.m. Monday morning, when state and local law enforcement will begin citing businesses that violate the order.