03/20/2020
The number one way you can help all small businesses in New Jersey right now.
I own Escape Room Center in Bridgewater, NJ. It is a small family owned company that supports 23 part-time employees. It is difficult owning a small business. Two years ago, NJ required us to save an additional 3% of an employees wages for times like this, where I’m required by law to pay my employees for the next week. Then, the NJ legislature raised the minimum wage, first to $10 an hour, then to $11 an hour, and $1 an hour every year until it is $15 an hour. On top of that, we still have rent to pay. My business pays $15,000 a month in rent. No, that isn’t a typo. I didn’t mean $1,500 a month in rent. I mean $15,000 a month in rent. My rent is due at the end of next week, the same time my payroll is due (for all the employees who will continue to be paid as required by NJ State law).
Let me ask you: do you have $20,000 right now to pay rent and employees if you aren't getting paid? Keep in mind, that's more profit than I made all of last year. Do you have more money in your checking account than you made all of last year for an unexpected emergency?
Did I mention that my revenue is negative? You may wonder how that is possible. The answer is refunds. People reserve rooms ahead of time at the Escape Room Center. Our business closed by choice on Sunday for the protection of the community, but we are also closed by Order of the Governor as of Tuesday. Therefore, there is no incoming money. But I’m still fielding lots of calls for people to get refunds of their deposits. At the end of this week, my booking system will be withdrawing money from my checking account instead of putting money in my checking account.
I know what you’re thinking. Your brain doesn’t want to read a sob story. You’re probably trying to protect yourself from feeling pain by limiting your empathy right now. You’ll do that by putting up a wall inside your head that goes something like this: “well, you should have planned ahead for a rainy day”. There’s the rub: I did.
Every year, I spend all my profits for the month of April buying insurance. It’s what protects my customers from going bankrupt with a slip and fall or some other accident that may happen at the escape room (luckily, no one has ever been injured – unless you count the dozen or so times I’ve superglued my fingers together to fix a prop). I also purchase business interruption insurance.
Business interruption insurance is a separate policy. Small businesses don’t have to buy it. The only ones that do are the ones that absolutely can’t afford to pay the bills if they are forced to be closed through no fault of their own. Like today.
Except, the insurance companies aren’t paying.
Can you believe it, even with all those wonderful, “We’re there for you” e-mails and commercials? Truth is that they secretly changed all their policies after SARS to specifically exclude pandemics. I dare you to find that in the small print of their website.
So, how can you help small businesses today? Not just mine, but all of them? Well, a few NJ assemblymen and assemblywoman: Roy Frieman, Louis Greenwald, and Annette Chaparro, have introduced Assembly bill A3844 https://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2020/Bills/A4000/3844_I1.HTM. It’s actually pretty easy to read as far as legal documents go. Very simply, it forces insurers to live up to their obligations and makes it very clear that the closures to the coronavirus are considered a business interruption and requires them to make the payments that they agreed to in their policies. (I'll save my sarcasm on why we need to pay government officials a salary to write a law that says that businesses are being interrupted right now - I think that's pretty obvious).
At the federal level, I’m already hearing about billion dollar bailouts of fortune 500 airlines that already have billions of dollars in the bank and access to raise billions more in the stock and bond markets. That’s a little disgusting to me. I don’t want my tax money flowing to big businesses like that. I need to keep my cash to pay my employees. The only thing I hear from the federal government is how I can qualify for loans. Are you kidding me? If I’m closed for the next two months, how long should I be expected to work for free to pay off those debts? Trust me, I can’t afford to work for free for the next two years to pay off the debts I’d incur in the next two months.
That’s why I bought insurance, so I’d never be in this position.
I’m asking for your help. Not just for me, but for your local barber/hairdresser, restaurant, party planner, yoga studio, dry cleaner, coffee place, toy store, etc. Everyone who gives you a product or service that you walk or drive to.
I’m asking you to please write your State Senator and Assemblyperson and tell them to pass A3844. For once, let the insurance companies live up to their obligations precisely when they are needed. You can bet that they’ll whine, complain, and demand a bailout themselves. But let that come after they’ve kept food on the table for every employee of every small business in the State of NJ.
No one will get rich from an insurance payout. It will only pay me the minimum I'd need to continue. That's what the policies are designed for, and that is the best, most efficient way to help everyone: give them only what they need - which is capped at the lower of the amount of their losses and the amount they chose when they purchased the policy. You can find your State representatives here: https://openstates.org/find_your_legislator/
Oh, and if you are going stir crazy and would want to play an escape room once it’s safe again, you are also welcome to buy a gift certificate to Escape Room Center at https://www.escaperoomcenter.com/giftcertificates.html
Lastly, I want to apologize to all the non-profits that have asked me for tricky tray donations this week. I typically donate hundreds of dollars a week in gift certificates to local organizations, but at this time, I need to suspend my donations for a while.
Please feel free to forward and share.
Assemblywomen Reynolds-Jackson, McKnight, Lopez, Assemblymen Wimberly, Mazzeo, Chiaravalloti, Assemblywoman Jasey, Assemblyman Mejia, Assemblywomen Jimenez, Swain and Assemblyman Zwicker
