12 minute read
Ready and Responding as a Community
READY & RESPONDING AS A Community
The pandemic emphasized the city’s resiliency, creativity and closeness as businesses adapt and residents are loyal to buying local.
BY KRISTEN HAMPSHIRE
If you told Ann Thomas that the family-owned organic craft distillery she started with her husband Kevin would add hand sanitizer to their menu of spirits, she might have thought the suggestion came from someone who was clearly over the limit. “Trust me, we never thought hand sanitizer would come into our lives,” quips Thomas, sharing that Western Reserve Distillers sold 60,000 gallons of it during a three-month period at the start of the pandemic when companies like Purell couldn’t make it fast enough.
“The base ingredient is purse alcohol, and as a craft distiller, that is what we use to make our corn vodka,” she relates. Western Reserve Distillers followed the World Health Organization’s recipe for hand sanitizer and created a liquid that can be sprayed as a fine mist and dries quickly. It doesn’t bleach out fabrics or leave a film on surfaces.
“As soon as we found out we could make this, we hired 10 people and ran 24-hour shifts five days a week,” Thomas says. “Our concern was making sure that main-street customers — people who couldn’t get their hands on it — were getting what they need.”
The distillery added five products and launched in five additional states during the pandemic — a show of responding to community’s needs, resiliency and growth.
At Aladdin’s Eatery, a Lakewood dining staple since 1994, dedicated employees at the tight-knit store masked up, adapted to health and safety protocols, and grew closer as a team while getting to know customers even better, says Dani Krasnicki, area director of the West Side. The business also hired more people and was able to provide employee bonuses.
“We got to know our guests on a different level,” says Krasnicki, speaking to the curbside carryout add-on. “We got to meet their dogs or their infants that they might not have brought in for a pick-up order before. We got to see their lives change, as well, and we made different connections with people.”
Small business is the backbone of Lakewood, representing about 75% of the city’s 12,000 workers, says Shawn Leininger, director of planning and development. Overall, Lakewood has more than 1,900 employers. “We have all learned how to adapt and become more resilient,” he says, adding that businesses were “engaged, active and offered a lot of positive feedback that helped us form and evolve programs.”
Specifically, the city was the first in the state to create a small business assistance program from CARES act dollars that offers up to $7,000 in rent and job retention financial support to businesses with less than 50 employees. The program is still open and has provided more than $840,000 in assistance to 200-plus businesses.
Stronger Together With take-out and curbside pickup business booming—and a sharp increase in demand for delivery through platforms like Door Dash and Uber Eats — the city of Lakewood put into place several programs to give restaurants flexibility, express parking and more outdoor dining space.
City Council adopted a resolution that allowed existing restaurant patios to expand, and those without this asset could create al fresco dining. More than two dozen new patios cropped up on sidewalks and in parking lots, Leininger says. This offering runs through the end of 2022.
Also, Lakewood allowed for parklets, which gives businesses with limited sidewalk space an opportunity to take a space or two of street parking to make a dining area. Plus, an excess of 20 15-minute express parking spaces were created in Lakewood’s commercial corridors to accommodate delivery services, and those spaces are available 24/7. “They’re [the spaces have] high turnover and [there are delivery drivers] always there [occupying the spaces],” Leininger says.
These programs helped businesses accommodate customers so they could sustain and even grow. “We didn’t do curbside before the pandemic,” Krasnicki says, adding that Aladdin’s did have online ordering in place a few years ago and pickup has always been an option. “We would deliver meals to cars and meet whatever expectations our guests wanted. If they wanted us to put it in the trunk, we did that. If they wanted it in the back seat, we’d do that. Some guests wanted to come to our back door, and others wanted to come on inside, and we were able to do that.”
The restaurant restructured staffing times and hours to accommodate all of the take-out orders. “In the restaurant business, we are always learning in the moment, making adjustments and solving problems,” Krasnicki says. “So, we are always moving forward.”
The experience has brought team members even closer together. “We were always like family, but the heartbeat just got stronger,” Krasnicki says, sharing that some employees even made photo albums including their work friends masked up, wearing gloves and sticking together. “We made the best of it, and we had some really good times and some stressful times. It was neat to get to know each other on a different level.” Always There, Staying Open Facebook posts showcasing new inventory and items for sale at Lion & Blue kept customers engaged and shopping during the pandemic — and still, as owners Michael and Tina Dolatowski discovered how loyal the community is to their 25-year-old shop.
“As a walking community, Lakewood gets small business and the importance of it, and we have been supported since we opened and through the pandemic,” Tina says, relating that business closure in March 2020 “made us work that much harder.”
While guests were not entering the shop during that time, she and Michael were there daily. “It became a warehouse,” Tina relates. “We’d take pictures of merchandise and post it, and let people know they could call in with orders or message me on Facebook. We were delivering in Lakewood and surrounding areas.”
Lion & Blue started accepting Venmo payments so clients could easily pay for purchases. “We had packages ready to deliver or hand off,” she says.
Meanwhile, as Lakewood residents, the Dolatowskis supported other small businesses like theirs by ordering takeout and shopping local.
The community has appreciated the shop’s safety measures, Michael adds. Those include plexiglass at the checkout, limiting the number of shoppers that can enter at one time, wearing masks, adding hand-sanitizer stations and sanitizing items that customers try on in the store.
Tina adds, “We were keeping people aware that we were here, we are not go-
Bottled Up and In Demand Pandemic happy hours at home drove up the sales of spirits during the pandemic, and Western Reserve Distillers saw a jump in sales like other purveyors across the country, to the tune of about 60%. “It’s a fluke, because it doesn’t normally grow that fast in one year,” Thomas says.
But Western Reserve Distillers has experienced steady growth and a major demand during the last year, which prompted the business to add a 12 Year Kentucky Bourbon, two agave spirits, a 4 Year Straight Rye Whiskey and a 6 Year Straight Rye Whiskey. And of course, the distillery added its most unexpected offering: hand sanitizer.
Customers included homeless shelters, nursing homes, home health aides, and the Cleveland Food Bank, which was able to supply the product at in-need locations. The hand sanitizer was sold in one-gallon containers, and larger orders were packaged in 500- or 2,000-gallon drums for Amazon fulfillment centers and companies like Sodexo. Western Reserve still has 3,000 gallons left in stock.
Once businesses began reopening, Thomas says residents, gyms, salons and churches would buy several gallons at a time. “A couple of people who bought it are now investors in us because they believe in the hand sanitizer so much and were grateful we could provide it,” she says. “There was a need in the community.”
As for investment, Thomas is speaking to the Honeycomb crowdfunding campaign that is helping fuel growth for Western Reserve Distillers, which is Ohio’s only certified organic distillery. “This was a way for us to ask those in the community who have been such great customers to become a part of the company itself,” she says. Those who “buy in” become investors, and after three years, they can earn their investment money back plus interest.
Indeed, the community has been a tremendous support of the distillery’s continued growth. “From the get-go, we felt like people here wanted to be a part of what we are doing,” Thomas says.
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By the Book While many other public libraries closed their doors during the pandemic, Lakewood Public Library re-opened in July 2020 “and we really felt supported as a community partner,” says Suzanne Weber, the library’s manager of public services. In her 30 years working there, “this is by far the most interesting year, and I’ve learned a lot.”
So has the community, which embraced digital media. “The usages of our digital platforms went way up and it is becoming much more mainstream,” Weber says, noting how the library posted videos and links on how to search for and download digital content. “We got a lot of phone calls from people and we were teaching them how to use the digital platforms.”
The goal was to offer as many services as possible while focusing on the health and safety of staff and patrons. “We really listened to our patrons and what they were looking for,” Weber says. “What did they need during that time? The biggest thing we found was printing.”
Those who took advantage of the library’s tech center for print jobs
could email it or provide a flash drive and pick up documents at the drivethrough window or inside. And in lieu of the tech center, the library purchased 12 Chromebooks that can be checked out to use on the premises. “Once you return the computer, we sanitize and disinfect it.”
Programming moved to Zoom, and the library will continue to provide this option even after it offers in-person meetings. Currently, all programming is virtual. “We’ll find a happy medium there,” Weber says.
Homebound services were extended and “have gone through the roof” with seniors and others who are temporarily housebound, Weber says. And now, you can register for a library card online through the Lakewood Public Library website.
“One barrier we saw early on was if someone wanted to download a book and their card was expired,” Weber adds. “So, we renewed everyone’s card for a year.”
In-person traffic is picking up, and more families are coming in to get books, or to simply sit and read. Weber says, “As a library, we really pulled together.”
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