‘Open Air Town Hall’
State legislators, business owners discuss reopening economy
WEST CHESTER » A few dozen people asked state lawmakers what they are doing to save small businesses in Chester County at Everhart Park on Thursday morning.
Business owner Chuck Swope facilitated the public event, promoted on social media as an ‘Open Air Town Hall’ discussion.
Lawmakers included state Sen. Andy Dinniman,
D-19th, of West Whiteland and state Rep. Carolyn Comitta, D-156th, of West Chester.
On Wednesday, the Pennsylvania House failed to reach a veto-override of Gov. Tom Wolf’s Tuesday veto against a measure proposed by the Legislature to immediately reopen a plethora of small business industries, including hair salons, barber shops and greenhouses.
Many business owners representing the cosmetology industry attended the Open Air Town Hall on Thursday morning at Everhart Park in West Chester.
Chad Weldon, owner of the Master’s Baker at 319 W. Gay St. in West Chester, said business is down by 90 percent since March.
He said, as a Republican, he’s supported Comitta. She was “a great mayor” of West Chester. Comitta served as borough mayor from 2010 until 2017 after which she went on to become a state representative, a role she still has and is running to keep in the upcoming June
2 Democratic primary. She’s concurrently running to take over Dinniman’s seat in the Senate, as he is retiring this November.
“I just feel like she’s not listening to us,” Weldon said. “She’s listening to the governor.”
“I am here for you. I care,” Comitta said on Thursday. “And I’m doing everything I can to help you. I’m here to listen, understand your concerns and your suggestions and to make sure your voice is heard in Harrisburg. Every day I share our business owners’ frustration and ideas for reopening with my colleagues in the House, with the governor, (Department of Health) DOH and (Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development)
DCED.”
Dinniman voted in favor of the veto-override to reopen small businesses in Pennsylvania including barber shops and greenhouses. Comitta did not.
“We are a caring and smart people — around the world,” Comitta told the Daily Local News on Thursday. “We will listen to and trust science and public health experts and take (unimaginable), extremely difficult action to help protect ourselves, our loved ones and each other. We can quickly do things together, for the good of all, we had never imagined.”
She said of the small business reopening rally at Everhart Park, “I heard today and I hear every day that small business owners are afraid and feel out of control. Fear of what the future holds for their business, their employees and their families. I hear a lack of trust in the reopening process when decisions don’t appear to be fair. And I hear tremendous strength and resolve from our business owners, that they are working hard and very carefully to be ready to open safely.”
One of the people to speak up and ask a question of Comitta during the rally was Weldon, the Master’s Baker owner in West Chester. He said his parents opened the business in 1970.
Three years ago, after taking over operations, he moved operations to a new venue downtown in West Chester, to be part of the local community, he said.
Weldon said his bakery business normally completes orders for 30 to 50 wedding cake orders per weekend during the spring.
Now there are no orders. No weddings. No need for cake to celebrate milestone moments among beloved family and cherished friends. Large gatherings, like weddings and funerals, least of all music concerts, graduations and business events, remain outlawed in Pennsylvania. Since March.
Born and raised in West Chester, Mary Lou Enoches attended the Everhart peaceful rally for Chester County small businesses on Thursday. She attended as a voice who represents all hair stylists and barbers having been the past chairwoman of the state board of cosmetology.
“It upsets me that many salons and people in this profession will not reopen,” she said, referring to Wolf’s ongoing shutdown order forbidding her industry to operate statewide since mid-March. “They’ve lost everything,” she said of local business owners. Of elected officials, she asked, “Why would they do this to small business?”
Enoches owns LaDifference Salon & Day Spa which today is located West Gos
hen. Her business first opened in 1990. She’s been shut down since March 14 via state mandate.
“It’s really sad what’s going on right now,” Enoches said.
Of Comitta, Enoches said Wolf did not put her where she is, the constituents did. “She is really going against the people who voted for her. I crossed the party line to vote for her.”
This election season, Comitta is running to keep her seat in the Pennsylvania State House. Concurrently, she is running to fill Dinniman’s 19th Senatorial District seat as the long-time West Chester statesman is due to retire from the Legislature this November.
Dinniman’s second in command, Don Vymazal, is running to take his seat in the June 2 Democratic primary. Vymazal has been endorsed by the Chester County Democratic Party and Comitta has been endorsed by Wolf.
Also running in the Democrat primary for the 19th Senatorial District is Kyle Boyer, a Tredyffrin-Easttown School Board member, minister and social justice advocate.
Small business owner Enoches said during the rally at Everhart Park that she was forced to move her business from its building in West Chester to a new location in West Goshen back in 2001.
Encohes has held a cosmetology licence, issued by the commonwealth, for 54 years. “The only time anything has ever affected my business is by the government,” she said. “My building in West Chester was taken (by eminent domain) and now this.”
Enchoes added, “But I’ll survive this time also.”
La Difference Salon & Day Spa employs 28 people, she said.
Like Enoches, many people asked tough questions to Comitta and some pleaded for her help to reopen commerce in Chester County, citing a dire need to get back to work in order to provide for their families and livelihoods.
Bobbie Zimmerman Surrick, of East Bradford, attended the ‘Open Air Town Hall’ at Everhart Park in West Chester on Thursday morning. She is a real estate agent.
“I’m concerned about the Draconian overreach of the governor to arbitrarily and seemingly without good information close down businesses, that with effort, and based on the information we now have on hand to safely do things, open up their businesses,” Surrick said. “People are desperate.”
On March 19, Wolf ordered all businesses deemed non-essential to suspend operations by March 21, but barber shops and hair salons were order to shut earlier. The industry closed down statewide on March 14.
On April 1, Wolf ordered a statewide stay-at-home order. Since then, some counties in the north and northwestern portion of the state have seen emergency shutdown measures eased, shut as travel restrictions for ‘emergency’ or ‘life-essential’ reasons only.
After shutting down all ‘non-essential’ businesses, Wolf issued a set of guidelines that determine which businesses or enterprises were permitted to remain open via a novel waiver process which many have decried as non-transparent from the state house to main street.
And while small businesses like greenhouses and community celebrations among family and friends continue to be outlawed, Wolf’s administration has allowed transnational “big box stores” from Walmart to Lowes to remain open.
“People are dying,” Dinniman said, demanding action be taken to protect the people living in nursing homes.
“Challenge the governor,” Dinniman told Comitta during the open forum public event at Everhart Park on Thursday.
Dinniman gave an impassioned speech calling for immediate action to allow small business enterprises in southeastern Pennsylvania to reopen from dog groomers to barber shops.
He said the focus should be on combating COVID-19 where it is hitting people most — in Chester County’s nursing homes.
Of the 274 confirmed or probable COVID-19 deaths reported in Chester County, 229 were residents of longterm care facilities. This means 83 percent of all COVID-19-related
deaths in Chester County occurred at nursing homes, as previously reported by the Daily Local News.
Nursing homes have been under strict isolation policies since early March, however the state mandated public long-term care facilities take-in patients with
COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic.
People willingly shut down their businesses in March to protect society’s ‘most vulnerable’ yet they are the ones who have suffered the most.
“I just don’t have any patience anymore as people die,” Dinniman said. “We have a responsibility.”
Barber shops and hair salons, like private and public schools, were mandated by the state to close down as announced by Wolf during a live press conference on March 13, the same day President Donald Trump declared a national emergency in an attempt to combat the arrival of COVID-19 to American soil.
At Thursday’s protest, citizens asked Comitta to put their wishes ahead of the governor’s agenda to keep Chester County closed.
During the last 70 days, Pennsylvania has experienced a score of changes. As of April 18, the state Department of Health mandated all citizens wear masks when entering “life-sustaining” stores including Wawa and Walmart. Yet, thousands of businesses, by industry deemed ‘non-essential’ according to the governor, remain closed.
“We’re making decisions based on the best information we have,” Wolf said during a media-only phone conference on Thursday afternoon.
Protesters at Everhart Park on Thursday said no matter what they shall reopen for business on June 4, the day the governor’s ongoing emergency order is up again for review. As governor, Wolf has the power to extend his initial emergency order mandates for up to 90 days after first declared in the commonwealth.
Elsewhere in the greater Philly region, Delaware County business owner Nichole Missino defied the governor earlier this week. She practiced civil disobedience by reopening her small business, Giovanni’s Media Barber Shop on Olive Street, back up to the community.