SARASOTA, Fla. — Several businesses are asking the city of Sarasota to reconsider its decision to keep Lido Beach closed.
City leaders say there's still too many positive COVID-19 cases to do that. To date, there are 419 positive cases in Sarasota County and 57 deaths.
Sarasota Mayor Jen Ahearn-Koch wants to see those numbers decline before any changes are made.
With local businesses losing a lot of customers because of the closure, the pressure is on Sarasota to reopen Lido Beach.
"It needs to happen," Jeffrey Schrader said.
Schrader is the owner of The Ancient Olive on St. Armands Cirlce. He was one of several business owners to email the mayor and commissioners with a plea to reconsider their decision.
"Having Lido Beach closed and all the other beaches open pretty much hurts our business on St. Armand Circle,” Schrader said.
He says the majority of his customers come from the beach, as do a lot of the stores and restaurants. And, having a business near the sand on St. Armands is not cheap.
“It's been very difficult,” Schrader said. “I'll be honest with people, it's $7,500 a month for our rent, so that alone is $250 a day."
That doesn't include paying other bills like flood insurance, keeping the store stocked, or paying employees. And let's not forget the added cost of doing business post COVID.
"We have an added expense now to spent $1,900 on face masks for our five stores,” Schrader said.
Ahearn-Koch says she gets it.
“It is a hardship, and nobody can deny that,” Ahearn-Koch said. "We just want to be cautious.”
“We're looking out for people's health and safety and I know this seems like a burden, but it's not forever it's very temporary,” Ahearn-Koch said.
She’s asking businesses to give the city a little more time.
“It’s been really difficult to make decisions on such a small amount of data,” Ahearn-Koch said.
But now that the Sarasota area is getting more testing done, she wants to see the results.
She says she won’t change her vote to reopen Lido Beach unless she sees a decline in positive cases from the new abundance of test results.
"The last thing you want to do is reopen too quickly and then be forced to close again,” Ahearn-Koch said. “I would rather air on the side of caution."
"We understand air on the side of caution, we've all used that term many times recently, but I think this is a little lopsided,” Schrader said.
Several businesses tell us they've survived hurricanes and red tide, but fear they won't make it through this pandemic.
Ahearn-Koch says she hopes the $2.2 million they just set aside in grants for small businesses will help and ease some of that frustration.
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