For Immediate Release
March 17, 2020
Hospitality industry urging relief and recovery efforts for businesses and their employees
Harrisburg, PA — This is an unprecedented time for the nation and the Pennsylvania Restaurant & Lodging Association is committed to providing Pennsylvania’s restaurants, hotels, and tourism-related businesses peace of mind to serve as advocates and resources to the industry.
“The situation is changing every hour and the focus of PRLA is the safety and welfare of hospitality industry employees, guests, and communities," says PRLA President & CEO John Longstreet. “We are advocating for the relief and recovery of the industry which includes economic and financial assistance, creating programs that commit funds to restaurants and hotels to survive closures and provide jobs for employees to return to. Pennsylvania restaurants employ more than 580,000 individuals, our hotels employ another 122,000, and most have been directly impacted by this crisis. Hospitality is a huge economic engine for the commonwealth.”
Currently, there is a four-week wait for individuals to start receiving unemployment benefits. Our industry’s employees, nor any employee caught in the crosshairs of COVID-19, should not have to wait a month to get the compensation they need to pay for their necessities during this crisis. The PRLA is working with elected officials and state agencies to reduce the wait time from four weeks to no more than one week, and unemployment insurance rates should not be increased due to the influx of individuals filing for unemployment compensation benefits.
Additionally, our businesses with rapidly depleting cash flow need economic stimulus or relief to survive these urgent times. PRLA suggests that Pennsylvania lawmakers delay the March 20 deadline for sales tax remittance and establish a sales tax holiday for businesses and consumers until this pandemic passes.
We urge Pennsylvania insurance carriers to revisit a common clause in business interruption policies that allows for coverage to be denied because of a broad-based “virus ‘out’ clause,” leaving businesses on the hook for something they can’t control. We are working to ensure that action will be taken to provide businesses with the coverage they need. Ideally, this can be done without a legislative intervention.
Together, we will overcome but only if action is taken quickly so that, when this is over, our employees have jobs to come back to and our industry can be positioned to do what we do best—serve our guests and communities. For more information on our comprehensive resources, www.prla.org/coronavirus contains updates, programs, and services available to industry businesses and employees.
Media contact:
PRLA: Stephanie Otterson, (717) 963-8369 or [email protected]
Food Shelter PR: Lorraine Gimblett, (215) 254-6601 or [email protected]
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