Dear Subscriber,
When I was 15, my parents’ restaurant burned down. Overnight, our family was plunged into a terrible sea of anxiety and financial insecurity.
Three years later, in 1978, Michigan raised the drinking age from 18 to 21. It may have been the right thing to do, socially and politically, but it came just as my parents had slowly rebuilt our security around a new bar they had opened.
That bar was 3 miles from Indiana, where the drinking age was 18. On Dec. 22, 1978, more than 80 percent of the bar’s business vanished.
I’m still here; we survived. But I learned something valuable from those experiences: After the fire, we saw an outpouring of generosity from family, friends and neighbors. People brought food and made well checks. Others helped my dad construct his new bar.
But the drinking age change didn’t look like a disaster to anyone; it hit all bars and restaurants the same. The world changed quietly, and no one came to our door to help. I fear the same is going to happen with the fallout from social distancing actions ordered to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
That’s why I want to take a moment and suggest we all look around our communities for ways we can help small business owners. Just like my family decades ago, they are getting walloped by the fallout from circumstances they could not anticipate and now cannot control.
Airlines and automakers may get high-profile bailouts, but in many ways, it’s going to be up to each of us to help the businesses that make up the backbone and character of our towns.
Trust me, I know: Restaurants, boutiques, coffee shops, and small retail stores operate on thin margins and very little reserve. The same goes for their employees, who frequently love what they do and choose to work there, rather than at larger box stores or franchise restaurants.
MLive reporter Julie Mack this week wrote a piece on six ways we all can help small businesses during this coronavirus outbreak. There are some useful tips you may not have thought of, like buying gift cards to provide extra security now for a retailer or service provider who has no way of knowing how long this situation may last.
I indulged in another one of Julie’s tips on St. Patrick’s Day: Calling ahead to order takeout from one of the restaurants in my town. It was heartening to see a line of people when I arrived, waiting for their food as the kitchen and wait staff hustled to bag and box it.
Did it feel like a normal St. Patrick’s Day? Other than the corned beef Reuben, not so much. But did it feel good to put extra on the tip, and know that those employees felt a measure of support in uncertain times? Absolutely.
Crises and disasters do a lot of damage, and by nature are out of our control. But the healing comes from people helping people. That, we can do.
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