Julie Verratti has a clear message for her fellow brewery owners right now: Get your legislators on the phone, today, and ask for relief for small businesses. She also has very specific ideas about what forms that relief should take.
Verratti is cofounder of Denizens Brewing in Silver Spring and Riverdale Park, Maryland, in the nearest suburbs of Washington, D.C. She also happens to be a former policy advisor to the U.S. Small Business Administration, giving her a deeply informed perspective on regulatory issues for small businesses. As brewery operators reach out to their officials at various levels of government—(also an action urged by the Brewers Association), see below—her perspective on what can be done is one worth heeding.
The hospitality industry is suddenly adrift in frightening, uncharted waters, roiled by the coronavirus and the widespread public response to blunt its impact. Across the country, bars, restaurants, and taprooms are shutting their doors. Many breweries are attempting to pivot toward to-go sales and gift cards in an effort to maintain any sort of cash flow.