Small business owners wanted to work—politicians wanted them out of business

They say that the two best days of owning a company are the day you buy it, and the day you sell it. For thousands of small business owners in 2020, this could not be further from the truth.

Earlier this year, I wrote a defiant op-ed, advertising that I would not be complying with Governor Jay Inslee's onerous coronavirus lockdown restrictions. Being an event rental company, we were among the first affected by the shutdowns and our industry will be among the last to re-open.

There were no signs supporting our workers. No commercials. No fundraisers. Yet every single one of them was essential to their families.

I bought the company in 2016. Every year we grew exponentially and were on track for a record shattering year. Running this company was fun, even with the problems every business owner faces. Delivering smiles to kids is something you can’t put a price on. Like every business owner, I poured my blood, sweat and tears into the company. The boss is always the last one to get paid so money can go towards employees and expanding the company.

Then in March, summer clients started asking for refunds, unsure of what the future held for them. Many of them were camps and non-profits and I immediately refunded their deposits because I knew the impact that shutdowns were having on them. Plus, it was better for the good will towards the customers, so they would remember the company that helped them out.

How to keep my company afloat, was a different matter. I came up with an idea that we could rent our attractions to families trapped at home, for multiple days for the price of one day. It did not cost us anything extra and customers were paying full day rental rates instead of for just 3 hours. The model got us through the summer, and we were actually able to increase our backyard party revenue over 2019.

What we could not replace was the revenue from big events, camps and festivals. As such, I was unable to hire the 50 employees I normally had each summer and was down to only 7. I was lucky that I was able to keep them employed. They are essential to their families.

I was also unable to help others. Last year, I began hiring employees from the Millionair Club which transitions people out of homelessness, trying to do my part to help Seattle’s staggering homeless crisis. I began making our annual inspection open to the public to raise funds for Millionair Club and Mary's Place, an organization for homeless families and victims of domestic abuse.

That event was now cancelled and those employees unable to be hired. In a city like Seattle with a massive homeless crisis, that means more people on the streets. I literally had employees from previous summers calling me weekly begging for work, and I had none to give.

Without any evaluation of our company's safety and sanitizing methods, we were ordered to shut down. Governor Inslee created a mechanism to report businesses that did not comply. Even though his Department of Labor and Industries forced us to call back our employees for a useless inspection on the equipment, in violation of his own orders the first weeks of his own "Stay at Home" order.

We did not qualify for big PPP grants. The little money we received went to my employees, not to me. The employees we had to lay off, have still not gotten unemployment due to the Governor’s Unemployment Agency losing over a billion dollars to Nigerian scammers. $1200 from the federal government does not support anyone for 10 months.

Amazon, Walmart, Target and others were allowed to deliver bounce houses manufactured in Wuhan, China, but we were not allowed to operate, even with our sanitizing protocols and contact free delivery. I chose to ignore the orders and wound up reported to Inslee's "snitch list" at least half a dozen times. The shutdown letters I received, I framed. My employees needed the work. I recognize the names of some of the people that reported me, and they have signs praising "essential workers" on their lawns and on their social media they encourage people to “support small business” even while they work to destroy it.

Yet, we survived. I thought we would be in the clear, but another factor kept eating into our revenue, Seattle crime. Nightly breaks ins to our warehouse from nearby homeless encampments. Gas drained from our trucks. Fuel lines cut. Parts stolen. One day I found some of our equipment in the homeless encampment across the street. Seattle officials enabled the campers and eschewed businesses and residents. Crime has spiked in the city over 250 percent and now local politicians are working towards decriminalizing misdemeanors.

With the Seattle City Council defunding the police, officers did not even show anymore when we called, so I stopped trying and realized it was time to call it quits. We sold our inventory and our building and left for greener pastures. Our family businesses have been in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle for over 110 years, and we were done.

We profited from both sales, so now the question is what to do with the proceeds. Whatever we do, it won’t be in Seattle. No business should remain here. Seattle politicians have made it abundantly clear that they don’t want us or our tax revenue.

The Seattle Hospitality Industry estimates that another 100,000 jobs could be lost because of the latest restrictions. Over 2,600 businesses will never re-open in the state. Yet none of the science points to gyms, restaurants, or hotels as the sources of the spikes in cases. Business owners have spent beyond their means and worked as hard as they could to comply and keep their customers safe, but it wasn't enough for the politicians who closed them for good and shattered their dreams and ruined their livelihoods. They were essential for their families.

We did not want to close, we did not want to sell, we did not want government handouts. We just wanted to go to work. I will have the last laugh though. Not having the company leaves me plenty of time to write and research and continue to find the skeletons in politicians closets.

For me one of the best days, was the day I bought my company, and one the worst, was the day I had to sell it.