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Scott Maitland, owner of TOPO Distillery and Top of the Hill restaurant in Chapel Hill, attended <br />Tuesday’s meeting. He said there were concerns, especially about how information was updated. As <br />a business owner, he would have liked more progress reports on the repairs and the timeline for <br />completing them, he said. <br />“The upshot is this was a freak occurrence, and I think that in general, things were handled pretty <br />well, and when you get all the facts, you realize why decisions were made the way they were,” <br />Maitland said. “I think particularly we realized, in the future, different constituencies need different <br />communications. A household can just turn the taps on and be back in action. A business can’t. A <br />business has to think about scheduling and that kind of stuff.” <br />While the water ban didn’t affect production at the distillery, TOPO did have to suspend tours of its <br />plant at 505 W. Franklin St., and business at the downtown restaurant was “an existential disaster,” <br />he said, estimating the two-day losses at $80,000. <br />He noted that Chapel Hill restaurants, bars and hotels “had some pretty hard luck this year,” <br />including Hurricane Matthew last fall and the N.C. State game postponed by a January snowstorm. <br />Jay Patel, general manager of The Franklin Hotel, was also at the meeting and said that insurance <br />will cover the hotel’s losses. He described the meeting as positive and that it centered around how to <br />improve communication. <br />“It was really just more of a chance to talk with folks [about what happened],” he said. <br />Bret Oliverio, the owner of Sup Dogs, a popular restaurant with UNC students on Franklin Street, <br />said the weekend’s closures cost the restaurant tens of thousands of dollars in revenue. <br />Oliverio, who was not at this morning’s meeting, agreed that the weekend’s closures were tough, <br />especially since the university asked students to leave town. He added that his insurance plan would <br />not cover the losses because it requires the restaurant to be closed more than 36 hours. <br />“It was bad timing that there was a big basketball game,” he said. “... All things considered, I thought <br />communication was fine. But for me, it was important to know if the ban was called because of a <br />shortage or because the water would make people ill. I think people were confused about that, and <br />we need to know 100 percent what it is.” <br />— The News & Observer’s Tammy Grubb contributed to this story <br />