CHOCVB Board Meeting Minutes 012021

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DocuSign Envelope ID:B2959B23-1DFC-4D77-BF91-33A27D171752 Presentations Lynn Minges with NCRLA. Economic Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging industry: • There has been no industry as adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic as ours. NCRLA has really stepped up to be the voice of the industry during this pandemic. • During COVID-19, restaurants, bars, and hotels earned 4.2 billion dollars less in taxable sales. • The leisure and hospitality sector is down 19% in jobs while other sectors are down 1.7%. 100,000 employees, one in every three jobs lost in our state has been in our industry. Those jobs have not come back. This is largely due because these businesses aren't fully open or have capacity restrictions. • Our industry has had 60%of the job losses in North Carolina but we've only received 8%of the business assistance. That's been through the Payroll Protection Program and state grants that have been extended to our industry. • Even after factoring in the Payroll Protection Program we are down, as an industry, about$3 billion in taxable sales. • Media has been huge in reporting the impact on our industry. We've probably had over four billion media impressions from many outlets wanting to know about impacts of various ordinances on our industry. The media has done a great job of telling the story of the impact,which really lays the groundwork for the important work that we're going to be doing as the legislature comes back into session. • The legislature has not been in session during COVID-19, so we have not been able to seek much relief from them. We have had to depend on the Federal government which,to date,for our industry, has really only done the Payroll Protection Program. They did the first round of that and now the second round is open. I hope that you all are spreading the word and encouraging both restaurants and hotels who have been impacted by COVID-19 to apply for that. • We have had an extraordinarily strong relationship with Governor Cooper and with Secretary Mandy Cohen of DHHS during COVID-19. Governor Cooper has been extremely collaborative and has listened to every concern we've presented. We have had a seat at the table and,while we don't always love the decisions that are made, we certainly respect the process and appreciate the opportunity to advocate on behalf of restaurants and hotels. NCRLA's work to help the industry: NCRAL has been there advocating for the industry the entire time since restaurants were first shut down and the stay-at-home order went into place. • Secure outdoor dining. I know many of the mayors in this meeting have played an important role in helping early on in the pandemic to secure outdoor dining. That was not an easy thing but many of these mayors stepped up and embraced this opportunity to allow restaurants to survive. It has been critical for many of our restaurants. Obviously,tough during the cold winter months but really was a lifesaver early on. It will be again as the weather gets warmer this spring. The mayors stepped up early on and advocated for that to save small businesses and that has been a game changer. So I just can't say enough about the mayors in this meeting who have done extraordinary things to help our industry during COVID-19. • Work with the ABC Commission to allow us to serve alcohol. Our ABC laws in this state are archaic and we continue to chip away at those. That was a big lift for us just to be able to serve alcohol in spaces outside of the designated perimeter of a restaurant. So that exists today and we'd love to keep that beyond the pandemic. We're currently working on that. • We were also able to negotiate cocktails to go. This is another huge lift to the industry. This was not an easy feat. Our legislature typically is very conservative and doesn't like alcohol. They don't like 2 Page CHOCVB BOD Meeting January 20 , 2021