NYSRA Update: COVID-19 Outbreak | May 1, 2020

Good News
  • You may remember our good news a while back about Feed Albany, an initiative started here in the heart of the Capital Region by Dominick Purnomo of Yono's and dp an American Brasserie. The program has been working tirelessly since its inception, and has now donated over 20,000 meals to the community. “It is gratifying to see the outpouring of support we have received in this short time," Purnomo said, "all with the purpose of ensuring that those here in the Capital Region do not need to go hungry.” Read more: https://www.news10.com/news/feed-albany-registers-as-a-charity-receives-10k-from-united-way/

Federal
  • The National Restaurant Association’s nationwide grassroots relief campaign continues. Join now to encourage Congress to support the restaurant Blueprint for Recovery, which was outlined in a letter to the Hill on April 20. Please take a minute to add your voice to this effort. Link to the alert: https://actnow.io/blueprint or you can text Recovery to 52886 to take action.

State
  • Governor Cuomo announced today that K-12 schools and colleges statewide will remain closed for the remainder of the academic year. In the meantime, schools will be required to maintain their distance learning initiatives, meal programs will continue, and child care services for essential employees also will continue. A decision on summer school programming will be made by the end of May. The Governor has not set a timetable for deciding whether schools will reopen this fall, but schools and colleges must develop reopening plans for the State’s review and approval prior to opening.
  • NYSRA Board member, Dominick Purnomo, and Melissa Fleischut participated on a conference call with the Upstate Business Improvement District (BID) leaders to discuss the issues facing the restaurant industry.

Rochester/Finger Lakes
  • Today, NYSRA Past Chair John Urlaub, Rochester Chapter President Kelly Bush, and NYSRA staff members Melissa Fleischut and David Cordaro participated in former Lt. Gov. Bob Duffy’s re-opening conference call for the Finger Lakes today. They spoke about the industry and sent him the National Restaurant Association’s Re-Opening Guidelines for consideration.  

NYC
  • New York City Council is holding a hearing on Tuesday, May 5, at 10 am and will be considering Intros 1918 and 1923, which will be hugely detrimental to our industry. One would require businesses or chains with 100 or more employees to pay premium pay to hourly workers, and the other bans terminations, and layoffs, without documented "just cause." We want you to get involved! Click here for more information on the hearing. Click here to register to testify live over video or in writing. The deadline to register for testifying live is Monday at 9:30 am. Click here to livestream the hearing. Please email kathleenr@nysra.org with any questions. 
  • Today, the NYC Department of Sanitation announced an additional delay on the RFP process for the Commercial Waste Zones plan. They had initially announced a one-month delay, and now say the RFP process won't begin until this Fall at the earliest. We will keep you up to date with any developments. 

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