San Benito businesses prepare to re-open

By J. NOEL ESPINOZA

After Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued an order outlining the next steps to re-open the economy last week, the San Benito Economic Development Corporation expects retail businesses to partially open within the next two weeks.

Ready to re-open?
Pictured above is downtown San Benito seen from the expressway.
(SBN File Photo)

“San Benito EDC will be seeing various retail businesses partially re-open in the upcoming two weeks,” said San Benito EDC Director Rebeca Castillo. “The idea is to provide some flexibility to operate yet still take all the precautionary measures to continue fighting the spread of COVID-19, such as wearing facial mask coverings, wearing gloves, washing hands, and using hand sanitizer.”

As of press time, San Benito had 30 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 13 recovered and 0 deaths.

On Tuesday, Abbott said the re-opening of businesses would be contingent on a plan to increase testing as well as contact tracing. The governor asserts the state’s coronavirus response team is already working with business owners to outline ways they can operate safely.

Within the coming days, the governor will release the next steps in his plan to re-open businesses.
The governor added, “Deaths continue to trend down as do positive tests, and hospitalizations remain flat to slightly down, so all the numbers are trending well.”

Iris Garcia, owner of The Shop with a Little Bit of Everything, a small business in San Benito that sells antiques, arts and crafts, and beauty and cleaning items, said she’s happy to re-open since Walmart, Target, and other big stores have been able to do retail.

“It hurts those of us that do retail, but we’re small businesses and we have to be temporarily closed,” Garcia said. “It hurts me to walk into Walmart, and they were selling everything that we sell as well.”

San Benito Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Megan Treviño said the upcoming “retail-to-go” option will provide relief for local shops deciding to open up. According to Treviño, a few of those shops include Main Street Boutique, Nancy & Co. (Inside Vintage Crush), Vida Nueva Creations, and Love Always, Gifts.

“We realize this has been a tough time for our retail shops,” said Treviño. “We will do our part to promote shopping at these small businesses through social media, which will be a big tool for them to sell. This will not only allow them to survive through our current situation but allow them to grow their audience and the way they do business, whether they continue to sell online and ship or provide curbside pick-up regularly in the future.”

Editor’s note: This article has been edited for length. To read the full story, click here or make sure to grab a copy of the April 24–30, 2020 issue of the NEWS.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.sbnewspaper.com/2020/04/23/san-benito-businesses-prepare-to-re-open/

1 comment

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    • John Harris on April 24, 2020 at 2:31 pm
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    Did not know any business’s actually closed. Went through there the other day and it looked like business as usual compared to where I live. We had curfews and checkpoints and law enforcement were actually enforcing the shelter in place order by Governor Abbott. In San Benito hardly anyone had a mask and stores were packed with no lines outside so so much for safe distancing.

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