Support our merchants in downtown San Mateo

So there is a balance. We want to encourage people to come visit and spend money to support our merchants, but we certainly don’t want to encourage gatherings and the virus spread that could come with it.

These are tenuous times. So what do we do?

Order takeout directly from the restaurants. You can still dine there outside if you want, but getting takeout might be the safest way to do it right now. You are in and out and the restaurant gets to put cash in their register or transfer funds to their Square account.

Buy gift certificates. Nearly every business in downtown San Mateo has a way for you to get a gift certificate for yourself later, or as a gift to friends or family. One idea is to get gift certificates from restaurants like Vespucci or places like Three Bees coffee and give them to first responders or medical workers as a token of thanks. A win-win.

Another idea is to just give businesses cash, though I’m not sure who exactly is in the position to do that. Big tips are always appreciated, I’m sure.

For Lew Cohen, owner of B Street Books and president of the Downtown San Mateo Association, there is a balance to be struck. He is open every day through Christmas to capture sales for the holiday, but is also concerned about rising COVID-19 case counts.

The DSMA’s mission is to promote the downtown and draw people here, Cohen said, adding there is a fine line in making sure businesses are meeting the new and ever-changing guidelines and being cognizant of their needs while also keeping an eye on the larger societal responsibility of making sure the hospitals don’t get overwhelmed.

“We’re between the old rock and a hard place,” he said.

It’s the same for the city, Cohen said, which has been bending over backwards to support businesses.

Mayor Eric Rodriguez said the city has been working on a number of ways to help, including the obvious parklets and street closures. In August, when the numbers were looking better, there was serious movement toward trying to draw certain neighborhoods downtown at less popular times such as Sunday night. There was even talk about having some live music, he said. But when case counts started going up, that was dropped.

“It’s been a frustrating area for a couple of reasons,” he said. “The target is always changing.”

And while the city has offered support and tried to think creatively, it doesn’t have the resources to offer financial assistance. Rodriguez is chairing a small business roundtable for newly sworn-in state Sen. Josh Becker, D-San Mateo, and said “maybe the state can do something” like cash payments, rent moratoriums and perhaps tax breaks.

In the meantime, Rodriguez and pretty much everyone in the city is pushing the idea of shopping locally.

“If we don’t do something, things are not going to be looking good this spring,” he said.

The one thing about downtown San Mateo that never changes is that it is always changing. You never know what might be new or what might not make it much longer. Countless times we’ve done stories about business closures and interviewed people who said they loved the place but hadn’t been there for a while. While it’s super easy to click on Amazon or a food delivery service that pulls high fees from both you and restaurants, it’s better to take the time to directly support local businesses. And this isn’t an abstract message that we might lose our character, etc. There is a very high probability we will lose some of our loved local businesses forever unless we collectively find a way to support them in this pandemic right now.

Jon Mays is the editor in chief of the Daily Journal. He can be reached at jon@smdailyjournal.com. Follow Jon on Twitter @jonmays.