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Northern VA and MD Reopening, DC Microgrant Updates 5/12

May 12, 2020

Dear Operator, 

Today, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam issued Executive Order Sixty-Two, ordering specific localities in Northern Virginia to delay entering Phase One of reopening until May 28th. Executive Order Sixty-Two requires the counties of Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William; the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax, Falls Church, Manassas, and Manassas Park; and the towns of Dumfries, Herndon, Leesburg, and Vienna (Northern Virginia Region) to remain in Phase Zero, as requested by officials in those localities, which mean businesses must continue with current status of operations.

Governor Northam has said that Virginia as a whole may enter Phase One on Friday, May 15th, however, Executive Order Sixty-Two requires the Northern Virginia localities to delay implementation of Phase One until midnight on Thursday, May 28, to allow those localities more time to meet the health metrics. Click here for the full order. Click here to review the guidelines for reopening. 

In Maryland, Governor Larry Hogan told the press today that he is giving autonomy to local leaders of the Metropolitan Washington suburbs, and other places hard-hit by coronavirus, so they will be able to delay the gradual reopening that he plans to announce Wednesday.  This update came after leaders in Montgomery County and Prince George’s County indicated that they would likely take a slower phased reopening approach than the state at large, and plan to be more in line with the timing of DC and Northern Virginia.  Tomorrow at 5pm Hogan will provide an update regarding Stage One of Maryland’s Roadmap to Recovery. We will keep you posted as soon as we have additional information.  Watch Governor Hogan tomorrow on Twitter or Facebook @GovLarryHogan or YouTube.

As we continue to discuss reopening, we encourage you to review the FDA’s recently released best practices/food safety checklist for reopening retail food establishments. Click here to review. 

In DC, those who applied for the DC Microgrant started receiving notifications last week, with some just hearing from DMPED this week.  As you may recall, Events DC approved $5 Million specifically to support the restaurant industry.  That funding was applied by the City as additional support to help fund the DC Microgrant to ensure that it reaches the most operators as possible.  RAMW is playing a role as fund administrators to collect documentation required by Events DC and releasing the funds to those specifically receiving through this DC Microgrant segment.  Additional Microgrants are being granted by DMPED through many different avenues and organizations.  As you can imagine, they received many more applications than they were able to fund and this was one way to increase the number of overall recipients. 

We will have more to share tomorrow as we expect further updates from the region on reopening.  Please send any questions you have to us at coronavirus@ramw.org

In closing, sharing a quick note from a local radio station looking to promote restaurants at no cost.  As many local organizations work to give back and support our industry, WHUR Radio is offering local restaurants free marketing through their "Open for Business" on-air promo that will highlight local restaurants to help elevate and market local businesses.  Operators are invited to talk about what they are offering during COVID-19 for take-out and delivery specials, to create content to feature their chef, menu, or a creative approach to doing business.  WHUR is utilizing Instagram Live reaching their 14,000 followers and recording will also be linked to their 85,000 Facebook followers.  This is a weekly promotion featuring 4 restaurants each week. Click here to learn more and for contact information to sign up.  

Stay safe. Stay kind. 

Best,

Kathy