Doing business: Stores do their best and hope for recovery

Morgan City businessman Skipper Williams compared it to a faucet being shut off.
The longtime owner of Skipper’s Sporting Goods said once sports stopped due to the threat of COVID-19, his business took a hit.
“Once they stopped playing sports, our retail business just dried up,” he said.
He is not alone as Tri-City area businesses are waiting for things to rebound.
Comparisons have been made to the oil crash of the 1980s and hurricanes. But for hurricanes, they bounced back in time.
However, Williams, Glynda Lasseigne, owner of Town and Country Florist in Berwick, and Charlie Solar of Charlie’s Pawn Shop in Morgan City each said they have never been through something comparable to the current situation.
There are unknowns about how things will be in the near future once things reopen.
“I don’t know. It’s scary,” said Lasseigne, who has owned her business for 37 years.
While he didn’t close because they are considered a financial institution, Solar said the pawn shop reduced their hours.
Among the other items they sell are firearms, which Solar said firearm dealers were deemed essential by President Donald Trump.
He said customers now do their shopping via social media and items are delivered to them in their car.
Those that must come inside are cordoned off to a small area to keep employees and customers safe.
“We didn’t want customers to go walk around shopping,” Solar said. “Just come (and) do what you need to do. Make a loan, pay a loan and go about your business.”
Solar said he has seen a slight uptick in pawns but nothing major, which he credited to the stimulus checks issued by the federal government.
Williams said he has been closed for more than a month, and his employees have been home nearly as long.
He said while they felt the effects of the oil and gas industry downturn in the 1980s, they stayed afloat because sports continued, even with orders curtailed.
“This is worse,” he said of COVID-19 with no sports.
When his employees return Monday, he said they will be doing “behind-the-scenes” work to complete orders they have received during the idle period but haven’t been able to complete because they were considered a nonessential business.
While Williams said the business will have enough work to complete for a week or two, after that, the amount of work that is available isn’t known.
Lasseigne said she has had enough work to keep herself busy, but not a full staff. She has been taking orders via phone and delivering them without coming in direct contact with the customer.
“Some days I might have three or four deliveries, and then some days, I might have like maybe 10 deliveries,” she said. “It just depends on what’s going on.”
Lasseigne said her business missed out on revenue from Easter and prom and dance recitals, among other events, which help the business during the summer months.
“Now Mother’s Day, we don’t even know how to order for that,” she said. “I just went on and ordered and just maybe cut it kind of like a third of what I usually do.”
Lasseigne, who actually started her business during the oil industry’s downturn in the 1980s, said she is trying to get her staff back next week, but they will have to make adjustments in the meantime, such as limiting the number of staffers per day, until business returns.
Solar said he is not making any changes until the restrictions are lifted and there is time to make sure things are OK. He also wants his employees to feel comfortable before resuming normal operations.
“Obviously, everybody needs to make a living, but I don’t want to make a living on the cost of somebody’s health,” he said.