For business owner Dan Jablon, the COVID-19 pandemic struck at the worst possible time.
“I sat dead in the water waiting for when they were going to open me up and I didn’t qualify for any loans because I had no payroll,” said Jablon, owner of Funcle’s Café in Hamden.
Jablon’s new business venture is located on Whitney Ave and is a play on words, transforming “fun uncle” into the name Funcle’s.
The Café had its preopening inspection just two days before the COVID-19 shutdown in March of 2020. Making him ineligible for government loans, which saved many small businesses from closure.
While the food service industry adjusted to the pandemic by offering takeout and to-go services, other businesses weren’t as lucky. For some, there simply wasn’t an alternative to its business model. In particular, those that required movement and in-person customers to stay afloat suffered greatly.
“We had the shutdown for three months which means we weren’t making any money, clothing wasn’t being bought,” said Brittni Grasso, manager of Uptown Consignment in Hamden.
Hamden, Connecticut, a town with a population of just over 60,000 people, was hit hard by the pandemic, as were most towns across the nation.
As is the case with most college towns, businesses in the area thrive off the students who attend Quinnipiac University. In fact, HQNN pursued a story in September 2020 that detailed a 30 percent increase in business for one Hamden store when students returned following lockdowns.
But when students were sent home in March of 2020 to attend classes virtually, things went from bad to worse for Hamden businesses.
Luckily, as safety precautions became more common, businesses slowly started opening up. For restaurants and clothing stores, this meant they could operate at a lower capacity as long as mask mandates were being enforced.
Mask mandates were first recommended for people on April 2, 2020, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Then mandated by Connecticut’s Governor Ned Lamont on April 17, 2020. It was at this time Hamden enforced the state’s mandates.
Mandates were enforced after weeks of previously insisting mask wearing wasn’t needed for healthy people. “We were struggling to make sure we get personal protective equipment, including masks, for the health care workers, so the initial recommendation was: Don’t put masks on, because we’re going to be taking them away from health care workers,” said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in a White House press conference.
Once masks and other protective equipment were readily available for the public, they were heavily enforced in all settings by staff and through a no mask, no service business model.
“Mask mandates were necessary in the beginning of the pandemic so that the spread of the deadly virus would decline and decrease the rate of hospitalizations,” said Wanssa Fahreddine, an ICU nurse at Nuvance Healthcare in Danbury, Connecticut’s hospital. “Mask wearing made sense since it was known that the virus predominately spread by respiratory droplets.”
Most businesses were able to adjust to mask mandates with mobile orders and deliveries. Unfortunately, one cannot place an order for a workout to-go. Which meant trouble for The Edge Fitness Clubs in Hamden.
The Hamden location’s traffic was always more towards 2,000 user check-ins per day, once the mask mandates were on they went from over 2,000 to about 900 give or take.
Taneshia Santiago, general manager of The Edge Fitness Clubs in Hamden
“The biggest effect on our business was masks. A lot of people don’t want to wear masks while they workout, so we saw a lot of members freezing their accounts or cancelling their memberships,” Santiago said.
A significant drop in traffic led to the business investigating the issue.
“What we were finding out was our members were going to different Edge locations in towns that didn’t require mask mandates, since each town had different rules,” Santiago said.
Coming back from COVID-19 shutdowns, “a lot of positions didn’t make it back, so we had a smaller staff than what we did pre-COVID” said Erica Gessaroli, an Edge front desk supervisor.
That meant combatting a drop in customer traffic due to masks wasn’t as difficult as some could envision.
“No one was really laid off, if anything we were trying to hire more people because we needed more help trying to get people in here again,” Gessaroli said. “Hours were also extended from 10 to 12 to try and get more people here.”
Though customer check-ins fluctuated, for many, the gym is a vital outlet for stress and anxiety. Which made a time of heightened stress, such as the pandemic, so crucial for loyal gym-goers.
Mask mandates definitely affected the Edge for me
Joey Borges, Quinnipiac University Junior and gym-goer
“I would dread wearing it considering once you start sweating the mask becomes wet and uncomfortable, which leads to a difficult time breathing,” said avid gym-goer and Quinnipiac University Junior, Joey Borges.
As evident as people’s displeasure to wear masks at the gym is, it’s not the case for other businesses. Grasso, the Uptown Consignment manager, explained how her business may have benefited.
“A lot of people didn’t mind the mask mandate,” she said. “I think a lot of people were actually happy we had the mandate. If people did walk in without them, they didn’t complain when we asked them to put one on. They were more so appreciative because we are protecting the customers and ourselves.”
For Freskos’ manager Dante Jones, mask mandates also weren’t a big issue.
“I don’t think they had the biggest effect, people still came in to get their food they just wore masks,” he said. “That was really the only difference.”
In a recent Sacred Heart University poll, the majority voted that they agreed with Governor Ned Lamont’s response to COVID-19 in terms of mask mandates and other restrictions.
Though the numbers show certain businesses were heavily impacted by mask mandates, that doesn’t translate to all of them. For most restaurants and stores in Hamden, owners and managers tend to agree mask mandates weren’t the limiting factor on business.
Wood-n-Tap manager Michael Pannone doesn’t believe they were severely hurt by mask mandates.
“Truthfully not,” he said. “I feel like there was a small shift in people who preferred to dine outside than inside once it became town-mandated.”
Pannone believes its biggest adjustment in business model due to the pandemic was in its food service.
“[The pandemic] has shifted how the consumer has used dine-in and take-out services, typically a restaurant has 15-20% of sales from to-go service, in the last 18 months in the pandemic its doubled, now about 30% of food is sold through a to-go service,” Pannone said.
Jablon, owner of Funcle’s Café, agreed with this sentiment sharing that, “[delivery applications] opened some horizons for us.” He continued to say, “I guess you could say my whole business was shaped by COVID.”
For Jablon, the biggest struggle in recent months has been finding supplies.
“It’s really hard for us to get service supplies so we just have to use the next thing we can find or change our product so it’s really just another level of stress. Today I might have something, tomorrow I might not be able to get it at all,” Jablon said.
Pannone added that anything coming through the shipping ports from overseas has been extremely hard to come by and severely delayed.
“There is one item that I have been waiting on for six months to come to the store because it comes from China,” he said.
As evident, the owners of Hamden businesses have been working tirelessly over the past year and a half to keep their businesses afloat, jumping through hoop after hoop to make ends meet and provide a product to make Hamden residents happy.
Fortunately, on October 29, 2021, Mayor Curt Balzano Leng of Hamden, Connecticut lifted the town’s mask mandate.
As vaccine rollouts have been in full effect and the pandemic has become a normal part of our lives, a big question for the future is whether businesses mask mandates will continue to be imposed and if so, by their own jurisdiction or not.
“I can’t guarantee a yes or no answer for if mask mandates will be back in the future at this business, at the moment I can’t say,” Santiago said. “But as of right now we will listen to the CDC and the town mandates. In the future, as long as they don’t make us I would probably say no to future mask mandates.”
Hamden businesses have adjusted to life in a pandemic through shutdowns, mask mandates, and capacity restrictions, proving those that have withstood the past year and a half are truly committed to sticking around.
