‘People can’t wait for months.’ County approves $30M relief for Miami-Dade restaurants

More help is on the way for Miami-Dade’s battered restaurant industry, as the sector gets its own pool of sought after relief money sent to the county from Washington.

With dining rooms closed under emergency COVID orders, Miami-Dade commissioners on Thursday approved giving $30 million in federal aid to restaurants and their staff, and are scheduled to vote Tuesday on $5 million in relief for laid-off workers.

The last-minute item was unanimously approved under new rules allowing quick votes on COVID items during a state of emergency declared by Mayor Carlos Gimenez in March and authorized by commissioners.

The legislation would use about 6 percent of the $474 million Miami-Dade received in federal COVID relief from the CARES Act — dollars cities are pressing the county to share to plug budget holes caused by fallout from the pandemic.

Two programs were proposed, one to help independent restaurants, the other to put money directly into employees’ hands. Both would be available to establishments with a Florida license to operate as a restaurant, including caterers. A decision on the smaller $5 million program for restaurant workers, including $500 checks for laid-off employees, was postponed until the commission’s July 21 meeting.

The larger grant program would make $30 million available to restaurants of 50 or fewer employees and $10 million or less in annual revenue. If any money is left over, the program will open up to restaurants of up to 75 employees and $15 million in revenue.

The program, administered by the Miami-Dade County Small Business Division of the Internal Services Department, would reimburse restaurants for personal protection equipment, up to 80 percent of rent and 50 percent for food and utilities.

Nightclubs, bars and mobile food trucks won’t be eligible, nor will chains, franchise restaurants or restaurants owned by hotels. Home-based businesses of any kind won’t be eligible, Gimenez said, since the county’s closure order didn’t apply to them.

The second program would put $5 million into a fund created by FIU’s Chaplin School of Hospitality and the South Beach Wine & Food Festival to help laid off employees.

Their existing Hospitality Industry Relief Fund would award up to $500 to laid off or furloughed staff, up to $15,000 per restaurant.

Lee Schrager, founder and director of the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, he said he expects an agreement will be reached and applications would be accepted soon. The first grants could go out as soon as the first week in August.

To date, the Hospitality Industry Relief Fund has raised and paid out more than $1.6 million. On average, the fund had a 10-day turnaround.

“People can’t afford to wait months,” Schrager said. “We’ve really got it down to a science.”

Commissioners would approve the payout on a rushed basis, using new rules they approved allowing quick votes on COVID legislation. The restaurant-relief plan was added Wednesday to the emergency COVID meeting called for Thursday at 11 a.m.

Commissioners also voted on turning over $20 million in CARES Act money to the United Way to temporarily pay some living expenses for low-income families. The United Way will distribute the dollars through a roster of local charities. The legislation said 15 percent of the money — about $3 million can be used for overhead expenses at the nonprofits.

Gimenez revealed a few details about the planned restaurant relief in a meeting last week with commissioners. He said he wanted the money to help restaurants forced to close after his July 9 order restricting food and drink service to outdoor tables. “The small ones that can’t go outside — how can we keep them in business so they can open up again?” he said at the July 8 meeting.

Several highly regarded Miami restaurants, which tried to weather the COVID-19 crisis during a first round of closures by subsisting on takeout and delivery and a socially distanced dining room, have instead chosen to close completely until their dining rooms are allowed to reopen.

Restaurant owners protested the closure order by Gimenez, a Republican candidate for Congress, and city mayors also criticized the decision as hasty. Miami-Dade continues to see one of the worst COVID outbreaks in the country, and hospitals say they’ll run out of intensive-care beds if the situation doesn’t improve.

At $50 million, the CARES money up for approval Thursday represents about 11 percent of the federal COVID dollars available to sustain local government budgets during the economic crisis brought on by the virus. City mayors are pressing Gimenez and commissioners to distribute a large share of the money to municipalities, because Washington did not set aside any funds for smaller governments.

“Our cities have and continue to make expenditures to feed our senior citizens and other vulnerable populations and have redirected additional funding to provide direct assistance grants to residential tenants and small businesses,” Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez wrote to Gimenez June 30. “All without the benefit of a single dollar from the direct federal payment [that] Miami-Dade County received.”

This article was updated to report that the $5 million fund for restaurant workers is up for a County Commission vote July 21.

This story was originally published July 16, 2020 at 8:33 AM.