Governor lets some retailers open; PPP extended to farmers

1 May 2020


Business, Community, Economic Development, Government

By Carol Anderson, Guest Columnist 

On Thursday, Governor Walz announced he is letting some retail businesses open with curbside deliveries. Those mentioned were repair shops and pet groomers with restrictions, such as picking up the pet curbside. Unfortunately hair salons and barbershops are not to open. Also, some businesses were allowed to open on Monday that don’t directly have face to face interaction with customers, if they have a safety plan. So this is letting manufacturing and some office businesses open. The state wants businesses to fill out a safety survey to give them input going forward for reopening other businesses. Here is the link https://mn.gov/deed/newscenter/covid/safework/

I really believe that when businesses reopen, they will have to have a safety plan. So everyone should think about what that would look like for their business.

The other big news is that the PPP program has reopened on Monday but the opening did not go well. I think what happened was banks were allowed to submit applications in batches which clogged the SBA system. Banks said that it was better on Tuesday and on Wednesday they opened the portal for smaller banks, those with assets under $1 billion. The big news here is, farmers are eligible to apply for the PPP if they have employees as well as small agriculture co-ops.

Read the full article here.