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COVID-19 Affecting Sacramento Small Businesses

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) - Small business in Sacramento relies on heavy foot traffic and an active community to sustain their shops, bars, and restaurants.

If Coronavirus prevents neighbors from interacting with their mom & pop shops — they could go under.

Thursday afternoon, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg announced major financial support for small businesses and the people who work for them.  A $1 million dollar relief package for small local businesses and a declaration to prohibit eviction for renters impacted financially by the spread of COVID-19 were among the promises.

"Nobody should be evicted because they are short of cash because they are affected in one way or another by the coronavirus," Steinberg said.

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Sanjay Varshney is a professor of finance at Sacramento State. He says Sacramento is largely a service sector industry, which includes restaurants.

"There are certain segments of the labor force. There are certain industries where literally it's not easy to work from home," Varshney said. "If the clients are not showing up to eat because they're scared to eat out, that means they cannot basically keep paying their workers."

Chris Hamming owns the Sandwich Spot and said 90% of their business comes from walk-ins.

"If our business drops, I have to cut labor," Hamming said.

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That would mean his employees won't be making money. But another possible pre-emptive solution is also on the way with the local declaration to prohibit eviction for renters impacted financially by the spread of COVID-19.

Mayor Steinberg also mentioned delivering cleaning supplies and hand sanitizer to small local businesses.

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