Local small businesses feeling frustrated after Boston rolls back reopening

BOSTON — At this point, with all the up and down, businesses and organizations are just exasperated after yet another blow. There’s an old saying that no good deed goes unpunished.

“I literally remember my fourth-grade principle being like ‘Stephanie, you can’t save the world.’ I’m like, ‘Yes I can and I can help anyone,’” said Threads 4 Care founder and executive director Stephanie Conni.

For months Conni has been collecting donated clothes to hold another one of her free boutiques for people in need. As soon as she finished setting up her weekend-long event at Lynn Museum, we, unfortunately, had to break the news to her that indoor gatherings will be rolled back again.

“When you told me that today I was so upset,” she said. “When you are at these boutiques, because I’ve done a bunch of them now, it’s like I could cry now. People are just so overwhelmed and thankful that there are other human beings out there that care about them.”

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The irony here is that growing COVID-19 numbers are now forcing a rollback, making it harder for even nonprofits helping those impacted by COVID-19. But, just as hard as nonprofits are hit, so are the businesses you drive by every day.

“We followed all the policies that were put in place for us to reopen safely and we really think we did a good job,” said Regan’s Motivated Fitness owner Thomas Regan. “We can only do what’s asked of us and we did that and it was tough to do, so another shutdown like this is going to be really hard to come back from.”

But remember the saying about good deeds? Regan said he doesn’t understand why he’s essentially being punished when he had no cases traced to his gym. The worst part, he said, is the short notice.

“If someone showed me that the plan was in place for us to lock down, it would have made the transition so much easier,” he said. “I don’t know how to contact all my members in the timeframe that I close my doors.”

Conni agreed.

“We’re going to have to change it,” she said. “Which means I’m going to have to go back and get in touch with all the people that RSVPed.”

The good news in Lynn, the rollback doesn’t begin until Friday, so she got a little bit more notice than the 48 hours Boston got. She said she can at least get a couple of days in for her free boutique.

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But for the gym, the owner told us December and January are some of their best months. So he’s losing weeks of income after losing four months earlier in the year. On top of that, his bills still need to be paid and he also had to pay for all the state regulations to reopen.

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