With increased COVID-19 restrictions in Ontario still in effect for the next few weeks, members of Windsor city council will soon consider ways to help hurting small businesses.
Mayor Drew Dilkens says he has asked for an urgent item to come forward to council on Monday, to find a ways that the city can support local small businesses struggling due to the current pandemic lockdown.
Speaking on AM800's The Morning Drive, Dilkens says he's worried that these latest restrictions could be the last straw for local businesses and that's why council is moving to act.
"We have a report coming at our next council meeting which will be on January 17. We're talking about COVID-19 rent relief, advertising relief, again looking at business property tax relief, waiving the sidewalk cafe and patio fees to prepare for spring and summer. We're looking at parking adjustments, extending the free period from 15 minutes to an hour."
Dilkens says they're constantly in contact with Invest Windsor Essex and the local Chamber of Commerce to understand what works and what else they could be doing.
"And we're getting all of the feedback from those folks looking at what we've done in the past that has had strong uptake on our end, and trying to recreate some of that for council's consideration on January 17," he continued. "I'm sure we'll be there to support our business owners as much as we can."
He says it's not just the tourism and restaurant industries hurting, it's all sorts of small businesses, so they're trying to find solutions that can help the most people.
"We're looking again at business property tax relief. We only collect one tax as a municipality and that's property tax. So it's kind of the biggest thing that we can do is to defer and push that out as long as possible to allow these businesses to get through without an additional tax payment. And then wait until they can actually earn some money to pay their bills and that's the kind of support we're looking at offering for all commercial business owners," Dilkens said.
Dilkens also recommended that anyone not in the restaurant sector take advantage of the $10,000 grant being provided by the province for COVID-19 relief, a measure that the province has provided at various points during the pandemic.
- with files from AM800's The Morning Drive