The Lubbock City Council passed a resolution to extend Mayor Dan Pope’s Declaration of Disaster to April 30, 2020, in conjunction with Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order. The resolution also allows for the Lubbock Health Department to control occupancy guidelines for essential services.
During the City Council meeting, council-members took citizen comments, the first of which raised concern for small businesses deemed non-essential. Small business owners, Benny and Paula Jackson, owners of Stems by Benny Jackson expressed their concern in an email to the City Council.
“We feel small businesses are the lifeblood of Lubbock and feel that we’re bleeding out during this time,” they wrote. They believe that current regulations in response to the COVID-19 outbreak are unfair to “non-essential” small businesses, while allowing large businesses, like Walmart, the ability to profit at this time.
They emphasized that while these larger stores do provide essential goods to customers, they remain able to sell non-essential goods, which in turn hurts the smaller businesses that must remain closed at this point in time. “The playing field must be leveled,” they wrote.
City Council members echoed this sentiment throughout the meeting. Council-member Latrelle Joy, who represents district 6 said, “At some point we have to start phasing back in our small businesses.” She continued by saying, “Right now we have picked the big boxes over the small retail stores.”
City Manager Jarrett Atkinson provided a few grim details to the hit Lubbock’s economy has already sustained as a result of COVID-19. He explained that transportation and hospitality were affected fast and hard. They have found that outbound traffic from Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport is running about 10 percent what it was last year.
The economic reach of the coronavirus continues to grow in Lubbock. “Texas workforce commission on March 27,” Atkinson said, “On that single day the Texas workforce commission fielded more claims for unemployment benefits than they had fielded in the entire month of February.”
With the realization of the financial toll COVID-19 is taking on the city, along with the extension of current regulations, city officials spoke about exploring options for small businesses to start back up. “Even if we could limit what was sold in an essential business,” Pope said, “Who is going to enforce that? We can continue to work on that.”
