One business owner along Huron Church Road in Windsor is happy with federal funding to support businesses impacted by a blockade earlier this year.
Fred Bouzide, owner of Fred's Farm Fresh Produce, says the blockade did effect them quite a bit.
"You know, we can use the help. We had losses during the pandemic and then the closure of Huron Church Road, and also afterwards because people were hesitant to come down," he says.
Irek Kusmierczyk, Windsor-Tecumseh Liberal M-P, announced Friday $2.5-million for the West Windsor Small Business Relief Fund, which will provide eligible businesses impacted by the blockade with access non-repayable contributions of up to $10,000 for costs not covered by other federal programs.
On Feb. 7, a group of people stopped along Huron Church Road heading to the Ambassador Bridge, protesting COVID-19 restrictions and mandates, halting traffic until police officers moved them off the route on Feb. 13.
In the aftermath of the protest, barriers were put in place along Huron Church Road for several weeks to maintain the flow of traffic, but those barriers restricted access to a number of businesses along both sides of the busy route.
Bouzide says they had to throw out quite a bit of food away but one of the biggest impacts was on Valentine's Day.
"That's one of our biggest flower days of the year and we lost quite a bit of sales and threw quite a bit of flowers out," he says. So it did effect us quite a bit and, as I said, the after effect was also bad too because people were hesitant to come down Huron Church Road."
Photo courtesy of @_OnLocation_ via Twitter
Eligible applicants impacted by the demonstrations will need to meet the following criteria: be located along and near the Huron Church Road corridor; have been unable to operate their business at normal levels during the blockade; have fewer than 100 employees; have intended to provide in-person client services during the demonstrations and could not transition to virtual services in the short-term; and be fully open, operating and providing in-person services at the time of application.
The federal funding is to help businesses recover costs such as utilities, insurance, bank charges, loss of inventory (e.g., spoiled food), wages, rent, and other extraordinary costs related to the repair or protection of a business due to the demonstrations.
Additional details on eligibility criteria are available on the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Centre website.
With files from Rob Hindi