Tampa, Florida -- Businesses blocked off by Tampa road construction crews working to fix Monday evening's water main breaks are losing revenue.
Some of them have thought about filing a claim with the city, while other do not believe their lost revenue is worth filing.
"It has not crossed our minds to do that, but anything will help," said Alan Mai, manager at Victoria's Old Fashioned Cuban Sandwiches.
"On Tuesday, we lost 50 percent of our business because of the water main break."
He said he was on track to lose the same amount of money on Wednesday. Normally, he is slammed at his lunch hours between 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Instead, he had time to interview with 10 News.
Mai did have a few loyal customers who he said called ahead to make sure he was still open even with the construction blocking the road in front of his store.
Next door to him, is the Pinarama Lanes bowling alley. The owner there, Corky Heritt, told 10 News his business was not as impacted by the water main break even though the road in front of him, like Mai's, is blocked off.
"Dale Mabry is blocked there but people are finding their way into the bowling alley," said Herritt.
"If there is a silver lining, it's been a wonderful summer and the kids went back to school that next morning (Tuesday Hillsborough County Schools started and the water main breaks happened Monday night) so I wasn't expecting a lot the next couple days. In that respect I've had no problems.
The City said if businesses want to get reimbursed for the money they're losing, they can file a risk management claim and mail it to that department at 306 East Jackson Street, Tampa, FL 33602. Then the city will review the claim.
