SEYMOUR, Connecticut — Local, state and federal lawmakers and other community leaders gathered at Klarides Village Plaza in Seymour Monday afternoon to announce grant money for small businesses impacted by last week’s storms.
“The goal here is to really help these small businesses which are the lifeblood of our economy, start the process of reopening,” said Daniel O'Keefe, commissioner of the Department of Economic and Community Development for the state of Connecticut.
Small businesses with fewer than 100 employees that have been impacted by the flash floods can apply for the grants starting on Sept. 3, when the application is expected go live. Each business can get a maximum of $25,000.
“The goal is to start getting that money out into the community on a rolling basis one week from [that] application date,” O’Keefe said. “It’s available for certainly cleanup, it’s available for lost inventory, it’s available for lost revenue.”
The announcement was made after Gov. Ned Lamont toured the businesses in the Klarides Village Plaza that are now destroyed by the storm.
“We appreciate that the governor is here. And I’m asking all of you, please, please, as soon as possible, even with the state, FEMA, or even loans, we need to come back. We need to open. 67 Family Diner is the mother of Seymour,” said Mike Abe, owner of the Route 67 Diner & Family Restaurant.
Abe is one of several businesses in the plaza that lost everything and will have to rebuild in the inside of their stores from scratch.
Themis Klarides, a former state representative whose family has owned the plaza for more than 100 years, was also at the announcement. She has been visiting the business owners at the plaza and assessing the damage since last week. On Monday, she asked lawmakers for more help.
“We know that there are SBA loans out there, we know that there will be FEMA hopefully coming, but there’s nothing happening now,” Klarides said. “We need help, and we need it yesterday.”
One of the business owners who attended the announcement, the owner of Housatonic House Restaurant Bar, said he’s grateful for the grants, but the money unfortunately won’t go a long way. For him, it’ll cover about one week’s worth of payroll. The restaurant is open and operating fully right now, but because of major closures along Route 34, it is not seeing much business.
“It’s been like one tenth of the business that we had,” said Mike Gjuraj, co-owner of Housatonic House Restaurant Bar. “And this is peak season you know, everybody comes out, school is out, everybody comes out during this time, nice weather. So, it’s been, it’s been catastrophic, honestly.”
Gjuraj took over the restaurant with his mom and brother back in 2022.
“Up until the flood, it’s been amazing. Everybody comes in, and you feel the family vibe here,” Gjuraj said.
The family is looking at a tough financial situation. Sunday’s storm damaged the seawall in the back of the restaurant, which is the first line of defense against the Housatonic River. Gjuraj said the town cleared the structure, saying it’s in good condition, but the damage to the break wall will need to be fixed.
Though that’s a costly venture, Gjuraj explained how the road closures are having an even bigger impact on business.
“It’s tough to run a business if you can’t get people to come in. And even though we opened, like we told people to go around the signs, people don’t feel comfortable yet, I guess,” Gjuraj said.
The restaurant is accessible coming from the Seymour side of Rt. 34. There is a road closure, which Gjuraj put a sign on to show drivers can pull around it to get to the building. However, if someone is driving from Newtown or Oxford on 34, Gjuraj said they’re getting stuck in more than an hour of detours.
“And I didn’t realize how much my business is actually that way until the blockage,” Gjuraj said.
Gjuraj is now considering how long he can stay open, despite the help from the state and the anticipated help from FEMA and the Small Business Administration, expected to visit Connecticut on Wednesday.
“There’s no way that we can hold the payroll that we have with what’s coming in. But, we’re going to stay strong, we’re going to, we have faith in our town and our city. And we’ll see how it plays out but, we’re here, we’re open,” Gjuraj said.
Despite what he and his family are dealing with, Gjuraj recognized that he’s talking about his livelihood, when others lost their lives in the storm.
“One of the people that passed away was one of our customers, so we, it’s, our condolences to the family. You know. Here I am complaining about a business but it could be a lot worse,” Gjuraj said.
Small business owners in Oxford also spoke on the newly-announced grants.
“We’re going to have some big bills to pay going forward, which is terrifying as a business owner,” said Ronald Stasko, owner of the Creative Starts Learning Center in Oxford, which was heavily damaged by upwards of five feet of water last Sunday.
In reaction to the grant announcement, he said it was a step in the right direction.
“It will hopefully cover the drywall, the flooring inside, it won’t cover all the equipment for the children," Stasko said. "But luckily we’re getting some donations from people in the community.”
David Reitz, co-owner of Tide Cleaners in Oxford, said, “[A] small business we lost about $100,000 when you look at all the investment we did in the building, all the equipment, it was a total 100% loss."
“We stayed closed Monday, opened up Tuesday for dinner. [The] reason being is we have staff that have kids, we have staff that need to pay their bills,” said Sleman Hussain, general manager of Char and Lemon Pizza Restaurant in Oxford, another business impacted by the road closures. “$25,000; that’s not even going to scratch the surface, they’re going to need a lot more government help and funding just to stay open."
Connecticut businesses that would like to apply for the $25,000 grants once the applications open are directed to contact decdctrecovery@ct.gov.
O'Keefe also mentioned DECD will be conducting biweekly virtual webinars, consolidating information from various state agencies and trying to get information out to the community.
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Julia LeBlanc is a reporter at FOX61 News. She can be reached at jleblanc@fox61.com Follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.
Kaelee Collins is a multimedia journalist for FOX61 News. She can be reached at kcollins@fox61.com. Follow her on X, and Instagram.
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