Founder and San Diego County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce committee chairman Jesse Navarro said he received several calls from banquet halls in Chula Vista on Third Avenue telling him they were disillusioned and upset about the lack of attention and information from elected officials during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There has been a lot of attention on the restaurants, rightfully so, but also a lot of attention to the breweries, especially on Third Avenue,” said Navarro. “They were not getting information and not being informed, not even by the Third Avenue Village Association, as to what was happening.”
Navarro said businesses have been closed for several month and asked them to assist in putting a meeting together where local, county and state officials could listen to their concerns.
On Aug. 17, 12 business owners, mostly banquet hall owners on Third Avenue, were joined by elected officials and some businesses from South San Diego County, National City and Spring Valley. Navarro said they all expressed concerns about being neglected, much due to the fact that many owners are women, mainly Spanish and have trouble navigating English sources, and that their businesses in particular have not been in the loop with all of the various city, county and state programs that are providing COVID-19 assistance to businesses.
“We talked about lack of representation by elected officials, businesses facing unreasonable evictions by landlords, lawsuits by their customers who had already paid to have a wedding or other event that they are not able to accommodate because of COIVD-19 restrictions, basically being out of business,” he said. “Some of these, and related businesses like photography and banquet hall support businesses, are also basically out of business.”
Navarro said other topics of discussion were about the current alcohol consumption on public streets.
“Businesses understand restaurants and breweries having tents on the sidewalk but they have taken over the streets and the alcohol consumption is getting bigger and bigger with basically no compliance with social distancing, masks and in some cases minors congregating with adults with the consumption of alcohol, with some getting very rowdy,” said Navarro.
“According to business owners, it is kind of a timebomb of problems waiting to happen. Alcohol brings a lot of issues to every community. Then the city and TAVA decided to close Third Avenue on Sundays and that made it even worse.”
TAVA Executive Director Luanne Hulsizer said this group is fortunate to be connected with the Chamber and the meeting was helpful because they had concerns since they have not been able to open because of a limit on events in place in Chula Vista. She also said they had several questions concerning financing, loans, grants and what TAVA is responsible for versus the city, local or state government. Hulsizer said they all seemed to understand that the closures are due to state mandates.
“I encouraged them to use the Chamber to carry that concern and message to the state,” said Hulsizer. “They want to open as soon as possible. They had questions about our road closure on Sundays.
“I told them it was only a road closure, and they are not the only ones who thought this was an event, but we only closed the road to support the Sunday curbside dining and also any of our TAVA members who wanted to come out into the street as well, like the barbers, hair salons, dress shops,” she said. “This was one day a week for August since we weren’t doing the Lemon Festival for the same reason that you can’t have gatherings. They had questions about the structures being implemented by the drinking establishments, so for that I directed them to the city because TAVA doesn’t have anything to do with that.”
Hulsizer said all in all she thought it was a great meeting and having that conversation to have them get more involved in TAVA, even to the point that we have elections coming up and encouraging someone from their group to consider running for the board.
“We have two more Sundays of street closures, Aug. 23 and Aug. 30,” she said. “But this morning [Aug. 18] the board voted to not continue the road closures at this time until we can find a solution for it to be sustainable because TAVA has been using its reserve funds to cover the costs.”
Navarro said there was a serious lack of general information and financial assistance from local to federal agencies.
“Businesses hear all over the place that there is information about grants, loans, information for restaurants and residents but none of that information has been provided to them, and they are concerned about that,” he said. “They wanted to come up with a reasonable plan compliant with health and safety regulations about reopening. Maybe partially with a limited amount of people or reopening inside the halls or moving events outside.”
Navarro said that if the bar owners or restaurants can take over the streets, maybe some of these halls can do something similar to help take care of some of the obligations they have had over the past several months. They came up with a reasonable plan, proposed it to the elected officials who were present in person or on Zoom.”
Navarro said the group received good information from a representative of the office of County Supervisor Greg Cox, who provided information on ways to perhaps utilize their halls to serve meals or for other purposes so they could get funding from either local, county or state agencies.
Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez provided potential information on grants.
Chula Vista has an eviction moratorium in place until Aug. 31, but Navarro said some of these businesses are being taken advantage of because of their lack of understanding of needed information, or information not provided directly to them.
“Landlords are basically being bullies, calling on the phone, serving notices and unreasonable evictions,” said Navarro. “Most of these businesses are small businesses with less than 20 employees, and most of the owners are women, mostly Hispanic women. The photography, fashion and other local businesses depend on these halls for business, so it is a chain reaction. And these halls are paying incredibly high rent, going from what I heard, $5,000 to $15,000 per month. And of course, they are behind due to the pandemic and closures. They want to be listened to and nobody has paid them attention.”
Navarro said he will be organizing another meeting for any businesses that are interested and want more information.
“Even though most of these businesses are not members of the Chamber, it is irrelevant to me,” he said. “The Chamber has an obligation to provide information to these businesses. Not only limited to Hispanic or Latino owned businesses but for anybody seeking the help of the Chamber.”
