CAPE CORAL — Even if you don’t want to stay home to avoid COVID-19, pretty soon, you may not have a choice.
In Cape Coral, the city is shutting down events and attractions, like Monday's city council meeting, and now, even some small businesses are talking about closing their doors. If you head inside Paradise Liquor and Smoke, you won’t find many customers right now, but you will find employees wiping down bottles with sanitizer.
“How are we going to survive? How are we going to afford our daily and monthly and weekly expenses?” said the owner Tim Serpionov.
Serpionov said, since the start of the Coronavirus outbreak, he has seen sales fall more than 50 percent.
“From $1,000 profit a week when we get it before that, and now we become like $150, $200 per week. How are we going to support ourselves," said Serpionov.
He said, it’s gotten so bad, he’s cutting staff.
“We have one employee at this time, and we pretty much let him go. To stay home, and as owners, we stay and try to take care of the business," said Serpionov.
Cape Coral Mayor Joe Coviello said the city is not declaring a state of emergency, but it is doing everything it can right now to prevent the spread of the virus.
“We just closed Sunsplash Waterpark. We just closed the community pool over at the yacht club. So we’re trying to minimize the spread of the Coronavirus," said Serpionov.
With fewer and fewer reasons for people to leave the house, Serpionov said it may mean closing down his shop.
“If we don’t have no choice, we’ll have to shut the doors. But, how are we going to live?” said Serpionov.
And moving forward, if the city does declare a state of emergency, that would give it the power to temporarily stop liquor sales. So that’s another thing Serpionov is watching closely.
