New businesses don’t qualify for COVID-19 relief money

COVID-19 has left many businesses reliant on government programs to keep their doors open. But for two new businesses in the Upper Lynn Canal, those relief dollars have been out of reach.

To qualify for most COVID-19 emergency funds, businesses need to show last year’s tax returns. It’s an easy way for officials to gauge how much money they’ve lost.

“But if you can’t provide that first and only document, then you’re excluded from everything. And that just seems incredibly short sighted,” said Amy Kane.

She bought her business in December of last year. She opened the doors of her bookstore in Haines the first week of March and had to close them again a week later because of the pandemic. The bookstore was closed for three months, but Kane was still paying rent and working. She doesn’t have 2019 tax returns. But she said it’s undeniable that she’s in financial trouble.

“I mean, new businesses are still businesses, and they should be considered as businesses, in my opinion, radical opinion. And just because they might need different metrics to look at the loss, to suggest that they haven’t experienced loss is totally inaccurate,” said Kane.

Kane was rejected for every kind of aid: federal, state, and even local. She says it’s hard to hear that the Haines Borough has half its business grant money left over and can’t figure out how to put it in the hands of businesses that need it. She says no one in local leadership has reached out to her as a new business owner, but she has ideas–rent and utility assistance, for example. Borough administration didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Kane says opening is already a gamble for new business owners—she didn’t expect to pay herself for a while and she knew inventory was a big investment. Now she’s just hoping to keep the lights on through winter.

“I’m getting to a point where, you know, I’m going to hit a wall from either exhaustion, the business monetarily, it’s going to hit a wall. Personally, I’m going to hit a wall, what that’s going to look like, I don’t know. But I’m still super grateful to be here. This is what I want to do. And I am hopeful that something will figure out and if not, then Haines is gonna have to move me and all of these books in the piano, they’re gonna have to move the piano again. Which is really heavy,” Kane said.

She said she planned to hang on in Haines, but now she doesn’t have a choice—she doesn’t have enough money to get back to Sitka.

She is not the only new business in the Upper Lynn Canal. On the other side of the fjord, Skagway News owners are also struggling. They bought the paper for a bargain price right before COVID-19 hit.

“It’s going great. Other than generating income,” laughed owner Melinda Munson.

She and her business partner and Gretchen Wehmhoff arrived in Skagway in March—just days before COVID-19 hit. They had to abandon the print edition of the paper and move online.

“And of course, the pandemic did cause the cruise ships to not come, which did cause the businesses to not have enough money to advertise in our publication that we gave to cruise ship visitors, which the pandemic cause not to come,” said Wehmhoff.

The annual visitor’s guide, a linchpin to the paper’s financial solvency, was a bust, but the women were denied federal aid because they weren’t in business last year.

They’re still waiting to hear back from the state’s CARES Grant program. They said they’re hopeful for the local program, because the Skagway Small Business Emergency Grant doesn’t require 2019 tax returns.

Back at the bookstore in Haines, Kane says there have been some silver linings. Locals are buying books. And they aren’t the only ones. Nationally acclaimed local author Heather Lende released a new novel this year. Her readers have been calling Kane.

“And it’s been really fun to talk to these people. These people are calling from all over the nation and they want her books, either because they want an autographed copy and they want to support her local bookstore,” she said.

They’ve been ordering through Kane. She says it’s saved the bookstore for now, but she doesn’t know how long her luck will hold out.