22 THE QUEENS COURIER • SEPTEMBER 17, 2020 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
editorial
Restaurants, tenants in need of bailouts
Many aspects of our society’s recovery
THE QUEENS
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CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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PRESIDENT & CEO
VICE PRESIDENT
VICTORIA SCHNEPS-YUNIS
JOSHUA A. SCHNEPS
BOB BRENNAN
ZACHARY GEWELB
NIRMAL SINGH
JACOB KAYE
ANGELICA ACEVEDO, JENNA BAGCAL, KATRINA MEDOFF,
CARLOTTA MOHAMED, BILL PARRY
CLIFF KASDEN, SAMANTHA SOHMER, ELIZABETH ALONI
DEBORAH CUSICK
CELESTE ALAMIN
MARIA VALENCIA
VICTORIA SCHNEPS-YUNIS
JOSHUA A. SCHNEPS
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Story: Rental prices drop in Queens for fi fth straight
month: Report
Summary: Rental prices in Queens dropped for the
fi fth straight month in August, according to a new
report.
Reach: 4,505 (as of 9/14/20)
from the COVID-19 pandemic
can be defi ned by Winston Churchill’s
quote aft er victory in Africa during
World War II.
“Now this is not the end. It is not
even the beginning of the end. But it
is, perhaps, the end of the beginning,”
he said.
We thought of this quote when
Governor Andrew Cuomo, at long last,
gave New York City the green light to
resume indoor dining as of Sept. 30. It
was something we had been appealing
for months to happen, as thousands
of mom-and-pop eateries continue to
struggle mightily aft er enduring long
closure and vastly reduced business.
Yet no one, for a moment, should
think of the resumption of indoor dining
in New York City as the cure-all to
the myriad economic problems restaurants
face today.
Th e pandemic has dug the city’s restaurant
industry into such a deep hole
that there are only two ways out of it:
New fi nancial relief that hastens their
exit from the hole and keeps everyone
afl oat; or a long, slow climb out
of it on their own, one that will ultimately
exhaust many of these eateries
into closure.
In many ways, the businesses are
in the same boats as the thousands of
residential tenants in New York City
struggling to pay the rent six months
into this crisis.
Sure, there’s an eviction moratorium
in place, so none of them are in
danger of losing their homes until the
governor lift s the ban. But the rent is
still due every month, and the tenants
are falling further into debt with their
landlord — who’s also taking an economic
hit as a result.
Both residential and commercial
tenants, and their landlords, are in
desperate need of a bailout. Simply
“canceling rent” isn’t feasible because
it costs the city the circulation of new
cash that can help stimulate economic
growth.
Alas, it’s another reason why the city
desperately needs an infusion of billions
in federal aid — that’s still being
held up by the Party of Trump in
Washington.
At this point, their continued stranglehold
on economic aid to states
hardest hit by the pandemic is more
an act of pure spite rather than prudent
austerity.
For New York’s restaurateurs, landlords
and tenants, this pure spite puts
them all in peril of never reaching the
beginning of the end of this crisis.
Photo by Angélica Acevedo/QNS
Roseann McSorley, owner of Katch Astoria, speaks at a rally on Sept. 10 during which small business owners
called on local politicians to help businesses survive.
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