Lightfoot: Relief package in the works for city restaurants forced to close dining rooms

The Illinois Restaurant Association is working with Lightfoot and Gov. J.B. Pritzker to identify money to help restaurant owners make payroll during the crisis so employees can pay their mortgages or rent.

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Mayor Lori Lightfoot, along with education officials answers reporters questions ahead of statewide school closures due to COVID-19, Monday, March 16, 2020.

Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Monday she’s working with the Illinois Restaurant Association on a relief package for Chicago restaurants forced to close their dining rooms until at least March 30 to mitigate the threat of the coronavirus.

Lightfoot acknowledged restaurants operating on a razor-thin profit margin during the best of times need immediate help or they may not survive the worst of times, despite remaining open for carry-out pick-ups and food delivery.

“We are looking at ways in which we can provide some support to these workers because they do live paycheck-to-paycheck — particularly the workers that are relying upon tipped wages. We know this time is a particular hardship on them,” the mayor said.

“So we’re gonna be working — not only to put city resources to help them, but look to the business community and others to provide some support. ... This is something I’m hoping we’ll be able to announce in concert with the Illinois Restaurant Association later this week.”

Restaurant Association President Sam Toia said he’s working with Lightfoot and Gov. J.B. Pritzker to help restaurant owners make payroll during the crisis so employees can pay their mortgages or rent.

“Everyone’s trying to get very creative. They’re trying to figure out where they can take money from one bucket and another bucket to put in a third bucket to help restaurateurs from Rogers Park to Chatham and Jefferson Park to South Shore make their payrolls,” he said.

Long-term, the answer lies in Washington, not in Springfield or City Hall, Toia said.

“The federal government has got to do for the hospitality/restaurant industry in 2020 what they did for the auto industry and the bank industry in 2008,” he said.

“The federal government needs to step up and come up with money — real money — to keep these restaurants open. It’s bad.”

Illinois has over 25,000 restaurants, Toia said — including 7,500 in Chicago.

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Mayor Lori Lightfoot tours the Chicago Public Schools Command Center, ahead of statewide school closures due to COVID-19, Monday, March 16, 2020.

Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times

Lightfoot talked about the restaurant bailout after touring the command center at Chicago Public School headquarters set up to respond to questions from anxious parents coping with mandatory school closings.

On other subjects tied to the city’s response to the pandemic, the mayor said:

• She is not considering either shutting down the CTA or dramatically reducing service, even though CTA ridership is dropping like a rock with more and more employees working from home.

“We have to keep the public transit system going. I’m not aware of any public transit system in the United States — and only one in the world — that’s actually shut down during the course of this pandemic,” Lightfoot said.

“People need to be able to get to work. ... You hear me talk a lot about our health care workers. Many of those workers depend on public transportation. So we’ve got to keep it going and functioning.’”

• She won’t hesitate to order more drastic measures — including extending mandatory closures to include gyms, movie theaters and other stores — if it becomes necessary. But, not yet. The closing of schools, restaurants and bars and restrictions on large gatherings was a “big shock to the system for a lot of folks” and people need time to adjust to it, she said.  

“We’ll keep looking at other things that we may be doing to support this effort. But, I think we’re in a pretty good place right now,” Lightfoot said.

• The City Council will proceed with a streamlined version of Wednesday’s meeting, primarily because action must be taken to accept grant money to bankroll the city’s response to the pandemic and grant extended sick leave to city employees impacted by the virus and allow city employees who can to work from home for up to two weeks. The mayor advised members of the public to watch the livestream of the meeting.

• The weekend chaos at O’Hare Airport has been mitigated greatly since hordes of passengers arriving from abroad waited hours for medical screening. But there’s still “a lot more resources that need to come.”

“My understanding is that the vice president had committed to the governor that they would double the amount of resources that were at O’Hare yesterday. I don’t believe that happened yet,” she said.

“We still need additional screeners at the airport. I don’t think the federal authorities understood that, when they added the U.K. to the level of countries that would have to be screened, that the volume would jump exponentially.”  

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