(NEW YORK) — Music producer Derrick Harris filed a lawsuit against the City of New York and the New York Police Department alleging he was wrongfully accused of sexual assault and imprisoned for four years on Rikers Island.
Harris was acquitted on some of the charges in 2015 and cleared of all charges in 2020, according to the lawsuit.
The city played a role in the arrest of Derrick Harris for “a bogus rape accusation, leading to his wrongful incarceration for four years,” civil rights attorney Ben Crump said at a press conference Thursday.
Harris was “wrongfully and falsely accused based on police lies,” he said.
Crump said evidence was fabricated against Harris to keep him imprisoned in Rikers Island for four years after his arrest and prior to trial. Harris was injured during his imprisonment, including suffering a skull fracture, he said.
The lawsuits also lists as defendants the police officers who arrested Harris, former New York District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. and Carolina Holderness, the former deputy chief for the special victims bureau at the District Attorney’s office.
The NYPD declined to comment because they said they had not been served with the lawsuit.
Representatives for the city of New York, Vance Jr. and Holderness did not immediately reply to ABC News’ requests for comment. Attorney information for the officers was not immediately available.
According to the lawsuit, Harris was beaten and arrested at his home by NYPD officers on Sept. 12, 2011, after an incident in which a female acquaintance screamed for help from the balcony of his apartment, alleging he had sexually assaulted her. The woman left, but hours later officers entered his home without a warrant, the lawsuit claims.
Harris was punched, pushed and slammed to the ground by the officers, the lawsuit says. He was handcuffed without explanation or attempts at de-escalation, he alleges in the lawsuit.
After his arrest, the lawsuit says officers falsified witness evidence and evidence at the scene to obtain a warrant to search his home. It also claims that the alleged victim’s rape kit and other physical evidence was improperly handled and that Harris had to have the evidence tested which showed his DNA was not present and proved his innocence.
“And then he found out how easy it was for the system to gobble up a black man and just tried him out,” Crump said.
Prior to the incident, Harris was a self-employed music producer with clients including Wu-Tang Clan, Alicia Keys and Busta Rhymes. He had no prior convictions or time in prison, according to the lawsuit.
“I feel like if I wasn’t a black man, then the fact that they had evidence to prove my innocence within a few months of me being arrested, I would have not had to stay on Rikers Island for over four years, just like they did to Kalief Browder,” Harris said at the press conference, referencing the teenager who was imprisoned on Rikers Island for three years without a trial.
“They hold you on Rikers Island, with no case at all, in an attempt to try to get you to take a guilty plea. And it’s wrong. It has to be stopped,” Harris said.
(WASHINGTON) — A top Justice Department official has a stern warning for Russian oligarchs who attempt to evade U.S. sanctions: Nobody is out of the DOJ’s reach.
“The point of going after Putin’s cronies and Russian oligarchs who seek to violate our laws and shield their assets is to say that nobody is beyond the reach of our system of justice, beyond the reach of our work and cooperation with our allies, and that these cronies and oligarchs who seek to support and bolster the Russian regime shouldn’t be able to get away with that while people are dying,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco told ABC News’ Byron Pitts.
The Justice Department on Wednesday announced a task force to target the assets of Russian oligarchs after President Joe Biden previewed the move in his State of the Union address Tuesday night.
The U.S. says some of the oligarchs have ties to President Vladimir Putin and he uses them to launder or hide hundreds of millions of dollars obtained through corruption.
Dubbed Task Force KleptoCapture, the group will investigate and implement new sanctions, combat unlawful efforts to undermine restrictions taken against Russian financial institutions, go after oligarchs who use cryptocurrency to evade U.S. sanctions and seize the assets of Russian oligarchs.
The deputy attorney general urged U.S. businesses to shore up their compliance with sanctions and make sure they know who they’re doing business with.
“Because if they don’t and they run afoul of the sanctions, the consequences can be quite severe,” she said. “And our investigations are often aided by companies and financial institutions that say, ‘You know what, we’re seeing some unusual activity,’ and sharing that information with us, and that’s critically important.”
Monaco said the task force is a “commitment” from the DOJ to put the full weight of the agency behind combatting “efforts of oligarchs and Putin’s cronies to evade sanctions, to launder money, to violate the sanctions that we’re imposing in an unprecedented way with our international partners.”
The deputy attorney general juxtaposed the images playing out on TV of people suffering in Ukraine with some of Russia’s wealthiest citizens evading sanctions.
“We’ve got people dying, bombs falling on civilian populations. All the while you’ve got oligarchs, Putin’s cronies who have engaged in corruptly acquiring billions of dollars, shrouding it and hiding it in luxury items in the West,” she said.
(NEW YORK) — Environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, claiming the agency has failed to help preserve Florida manatee habitats as the species faces rising deaths.
Nearly 1,100 manatees died in 2021, which is roughly 20% of the east coast population of manatees, according to a lawsuit filed by Save the Manatee Club, the Center for Biological Diversity and Defenders of Wildlife.
“We’ve now had almost 300 [die] in 2022,” aquatic biologist Patrick Rose told ABC News. Rose is the executive director of Save the Manatee Club, the non-profit organization started by singer Jimmy Buffet in 1981 that is dedicated to protecting manatees and preserving their natural habitat.
The group tells ABC News that popular waterways for manatees, like the Indian River Lagoon on Florida’s east coast, have suffered years of pollution from sources like failed septic tanks, improperly treated sewage and fertilizer that deposits nutrients into the water.
“That excess nutrient causes algal blooms that were so severe that it shaded out the seagrass that manatees and other species depend on. The seagrass died,” Rose said.
Manatees typically eat 100 to 200 pounds of seagrass and other plants every day, or roughly 10-20% of their body weight. With so little seagrass available, the manatees have been starving, and in 2021 U.S Fish and Wildlife declared the high number of manatee deaths “an unusual mortality event”.
According to the lawsuit, the Florida manatee was first listed as an endangered species in 1967, but to help protect the animals even further, USFWS designated areas where manatees are found as a “critical habitat” in 1976. Critical habitats are specific areas that have biological and physical features that are important for the survival of a species.
When the critical habitat was first established, important components of the habitat, such as the seagrass, were not taken into consideration, Rose said.
But by 2008, updated Congressional and USFWS definitions of a critical habit and new scientific information required that the manatee’s critical habitat designation be adjusted, according to the lawsuit.
Environmental groups requested that USFWS update the term in 2008 and the agency agreed, but never followed through, according to the lawsuit.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did not respond to an ABC News request for comment on the lawsuit.
Save the Manatee Club hopes the USFWS “will work with us now to ensure that seagrasses and warm water habitat are better protected to prevent a continuation of the devastating losses of so many manatees due the continuing loss of seagrasses, which are literally “critically important” to the future survival of manatees,” Rose said.
Save the Manatee is also appealing to the United States Environmental Protection Agency in hopes to upgrade water quality standards so that seagrass will not continue to die from pollution.
“Ultimately, we believe that we must use the provisions of both the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act to ensure that manatees are protected today and for the foreseeable future,” Rose said.
If the court rules in favor of the environmental groups, it will result in higher standards and stiffer penalties for those who pollute waters which kill seagrass. According to Rose, until the standards are raised, the manatees and their ecosystems will continue to be under threat.
(WASHINGTON) — Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s daughter once penned a letter to then-President Barack Obama requesting he nominate her mom for a seat on the Supreme Court.
Leila, who was an 11-year-old middle schooler in 2016, wrote the missive touting the credentials of her mother following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Jackson was serving on the U.S. District Court of Washington, D.C. at the time.
“I would like to add my mother, Ketanji Brown Jackson of the District Court, to the list,” Leila wrote, referring to Obama’s shortlist of potential nominees.
“She is determined, honest, and never breaks a promise to anyone, even if there are other things she’d rather do,” the letter reads. “She can demonstrate commitment, and is loyal and never brags.”
Jackson read the entire letter aloud in a 2017 speech and tells the story around it and how she first explained to her daughter the process of becoming a justice.
Obama ended up selecting Merrick Garland to fill the opening, but Senate Republicans fused to hold hearings on the now-attorney general, leaving the seat to be filled by President Donald Trump, who nominated Justice Neil Gorsuch.
It took another six years for President Joe Biden, who served as Obama’s vice president when Leila sent her letter, to come to the same conclusion that Brown “would make a great Supreme Court Justice, even if the workload will be larger….”
In February, Biden tapped to Brown replace Justice Stephen Breyer, who announced his retirement earlier this year.
It is the first time a Black woman has been nominated to the Supreme Court.
(LOUISVILLE, Ky.) — A jury in Louisville, Kentucky, has found Brett Hankison, the former police officer charged with recklessly shooting into a neighboring apartment during the course of the raid that ended with the death of Breonna Taylor, not guilty on all three counts.
The jury deliberated for just three hours before returning its verdict.
Hankison fired 10 shots into Taylor’s apartment, several of which entered a neighboring apartment where a man, child and pregnant woman were living, according to prosecutors.
Bullets and casings from Hankison’s gun were found on the scene and retrieved from a common wall of Taylor and her neighbors.
In an interview with Louisville Metro Police Department’s Public Integrity Unit in the weeks following the shooting, Hankison alleged that he saw muzzle flashes and was “certain” at the time he heard an AR-15 rifle firing out of the apartment.
After he heard gunshots, Hankison said he thought Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly had been shot. He said he assumed other officers were hit as well.
“I thought they were just being executed,” he said.
No AR-15 rifle or corresponding bullets or casings were found on the scene.
The prosecution delivered its closing arguments Thursday.
“This is not a case to decide who is at fault for the tragic death of Breonna Taylor,” prosecutor Barbara Whaley told the court. “This is not a case about civil rights violations under federal law or the United States Constitution. And this is not a case about Kenneth Walker. Whether what he did that night was right or wrong, this is not your decision.”
Hankison, and fellow officers Myles Cosgrove and Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, fired 32 shots into Taylor’s apartment while serving a “no-knock” warrant. Taylor, who was in her bedroom in the apartment, was killed.
The plainclothes officers were serving the warrant searching for Taylor’s ex-boyfriend, who they allege was dealing drugs. He was not at the residence, but her current boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, thought someone was breaking into the home and fired one shot from a 9mm pistol at the officers. Mattingly was struck in the leg and officers opened fire, killing the 26-year-old Taylor.
The death sparked outrage nationwide and protests calling for the officers to be held accountable for the killing. To this day, no one has been charged with Taylor’s death.
Hankison and Cosgrove were both fired from the police department.
“Today, the jury rendered its decision. We appreciate the hard work of our prosecutors and respect the decision of the jury,” Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said in a statement after the verdict was read on Thursday.
This is a developing story. Check back for details.
(NEW YORK) — After a chaotic week, Russian soprano Anna Netrebko has withdrawn from performances at New York City’s Metropolitan Opera House.
“It is a great artistic loss for the Met and for opera,” Met Opera general manager Peter Gelb said in a statement Thursday. “Anna is one of the greatest singers in Met history, but with Putin killing innocent victims in Ukraine, there was no way forward.”
On Sunday, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Gelb posted a message to the Met’s social media saying, “We can no longer engage with artists or institutions that support Putin or are supported by him — not until the invasion and killing has been stopped, order has been restored and restitutions have been made.”
The statement was met with confusion from some specifically because Netrebko — who has previously voiced support for Putin and in 2014 supported the arts in the separatist region of Ukraine — has become a widely recognized face of the Met over the last two decades, including opening the season several years in a row. She was set to perform in the Met’s “Turandot” later in the spring and was scheduled to perform in the 2022-23 season, which the Met announced Feb. 23.
The Met’s message now that she has been withdrawn from performances after “not complying with the Met’s condition that she repudiate her public support for Vladimir Putin while he wages war on Ukraine,” is sending loud reverberations through the industry.
In a series of Instagram posts over the weekend, Netrebko called for peace and voiced her opposition to the war, but did not mention Putin.
“Forcing artists, or any public figure, to voice their political opinions in public and to denounce their homeland is not right. This should be a free choice. Like many of my colleagues, I am not a political person. I am not an expert in politics. I am an artist and my purpose is to unite people across political divides,” she wrote on an Instagram post Saturday.
She went on to say in an Instagram story, “It’s especially despicable from people from the West, seated comfortable in their home, not fearing for their lives, to pretend to be brave and pretending to ‘fight’ by putting in trouble artists who asked nothing.”
Netrebko’s Instagram, where she has over 750,000 followers, was later set to private.
Netrebko’s withdrawal from the Met, which includes the “Turandot” this spring as well as a “Don Carlo” in the next season, comes as Russian conductor Valery Gergiev faces similar career impacts from the invasion. He was replaced in a series of Vienna Philharmonic concerts at New York City’s Carnegie Hall last week and fired as chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic after also refusing to denounce Putin.
The two — who are among the most globally famous classical artists currently performing — have faced, and stand to face, further repercussions as the opera and classical industry take stands against the Russian invasion.
Polish tenor Piotr Beczała, Latvian mezzo Elīna Garanča and Georgian mezzo Anita Rachvelishvili all announced they would not be performing in Russia, with Rachvelishvili calling Putin a “dictator” who “is killing our people.”
“I am not a politician and I have no influence on political decisions. But I am an artist and I can use my voice to express my opposition to the war that takes place just across the border of my beloved motherland,” Beczała wrote.
Russian American conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya, music director of the Chicago Opera Theater, wrote on Twitter that she was “terrified for all my family and friends in Ukraine, where I spent so many happy summers as a child.”
Finnish soprano Karita Mattila also took to Twitter with a memory: “I refused to perform with (Maestro) Gergiev in 2014 at Carnegie Hall concert because he publicly supported Russian invasion of Crimea. I wanted to show solidarity towards my Ukrainian colleagues. My action had long lasting consequences: I received threats.”
Netrebko has brushed controversy before, both with her 2014 actions and with her opinions on skin-darkening makeup. Gelb told The New York Times it’s “hard to imagine a scenario in which (Netrebko) will return to the Met,” a stunning remark given her staying power at the house that made her an international star.
The Met on Monday opened its first opera after a scheduled monthlong break with a performance of the Ukrainian national anthem.
For the springtime “Turandot,” Netrebko will be replaced by Liudmyla Monastyrska — a Ukrainian soprano.
(NEW YORK) — A New York girl is on a mission to brighten the lives of cancer patients in her community.
Sophie Enderton of Newfane, New York, started her “Sophie’s chemo bags” initiative after seeing her late grandfather, Terry Enderton, undergo chemotherapy after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last October.
“She saw him kind of struggling and losing his hair and getting tired and just having to sit at chemo,” Sophie’s mom, Jillian Enderton, explained to “Good Morning America.” “I think his chemo was two or three hours long and he was saying how many people were there just sitting around and she wanted to do something to help him and other chemo patients.”
So Sophie got to work and enlisted the help of her parents and maternal grandparents to help bring her vision to life.
She and her mom researched chemo-friendly care package ideas on Pinterest, while she and her grandparents went shopping for comforting items, like blankets, pillows, cozy socks, soup bowls, pre-made soups, mints, and ginger candies. Later, Sophie added games, such as playing cards and checkers sets.
Sophie’s great-grandmother even knitted several homemade blankets for the first set of “Sophie’s chemo bags” and as word spread, so did the donations.
“We received a lot of donations from people in the community, family and friends, so she’s able to put a little bit more in there and have more extra money to do it again in December. She wants to do it again at Christmas also,” Enderton said.
Sophie made a total of ten bags for her first set to patients at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, New York. The first bag went to none other than her beloved grandpa Terry.
“He was super proud of her and the work she was doing and wanting to help others,” Enderton recalled. “Very proud grandpa.”
Sophie is making sure to carry on what she started, honoring her late grandfather in the process.
“He passed away in December after a short battle of pancreatic cancer,” Enderton continued. “His birthday’s at the end of March and we are scheduled to go up actually on his birthday and drop more bags off.”
For this second round of chemo bags, Sophie added 5 more bags for children as well.
“She wanted to do some for kids because she doesn’t think it’s fair that they have to go be sick so she wanted to brighten their day too,” Enderton said.
The 39-year-old mom said her daughter’s chemo bags project seems to be supporting her through the grieving process.
“She’s putting her energy into something else so that’s helping her, knowing that she is helping others who are going through the same thing. She’s actually flattered by all the attention. She’s like, ‘I just wanted to help people.’”
Enderton said her daughter and father-in-law had a special bond and Terry Enderton would pick her up to and from school in his red Corvette, as well as attend all her soccer and softball games. “She just loves the time they really spent together. She says he was one of her best friends and he was there for everything,” she said.
“We just want to keep it going and do grandpa proud.”
U.S. Navy-contracted diving support vessel (DSCV) Picasso, successfully retrieved the F-35C Lightning II aircraft that crashed during routine flight operations earlier this year in the South China Sea, March 2. – U.S. Navy
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. Navy said Thursday it has recovered the stealth F-35C fighter jet that fell into the South China Sea after a crash landing aboard the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in late January.
The jet’s resting place in international waters had fueled speculation that China might want to attempt its own salvage operations of the world’s most advanced stealth fighter jet.
On Jan. 24 while conducting regular flight operations in the South China Sea the jet crashed on the carrier’s deck while attempting a landing. It ultimately slid off of the deck into the ocean waters and seven sailors, including the pilot, were injured in the crash.
The Navy said shortly after the incident that it would attempt to recover the jet that ultimately was located at a depth of more than two miles.
“The wreckage was recovered from a depth of approximately 12,400-feet by a team from CTF 75 and the NAVSEA’s Supervisor of Salvage and Diving (SUPSALV) embarked on the diving support construction vessel (DSCV) Picasso,” said a statement from the Navy’s Seventh Fleet.
“The task force’s expertise in rapid, scalable command, control, and communications, agile logistics, organic security, and explosive ordnance disposal was the most flexible choice for the fleet commander to respond in a timely manner,” said CTF 75 Commodore, Capt. Gareth Healy.
The plane was recovered using a remotely operated vehicle, known as the CURV-21, that attached specialized rigging and lift lines to the aircraft so it could be raised by the crane aboard the Picasso.
“The aircraft will be delivered to a nearby military installation to aid in the ongoing investigation and evaluated for potential transport to the United States,’ said the statement.
Soon after the crash, a video that showed the aircraft on approach and photos that showed the aircraft floating in the water were posted on social media and confirmed by the Navy as having been taken aboard the aircraft carrier.
Five sailors, including a junior officer, were later charged with leaking a second video that showed the actual crash that had been recorded by one of the ship’s surveillance cameras.
(NEW YORK) — Joshua James, 34, of Arab, Alabama, pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy charges on Wednesday as part of deal with prosecutors contingent on his cooperation with the U.S. government in their ongoing prosecution of defendants who were involved in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The plea deal is the first of its kind for a Jan. 6 defendant and comes nearly a year after James was charged with impeding and obstructing Congress’ affirmation of the Electoral College vote in the 2020 presidential election.
James pleaded guilty before the court to one count of seditious conspiracy and one count of obstructing an official proceeding in exchange for a reduced offense level, which the judge will consider at sentencing. James agreed to pay $2,000 under the agreement for the damages to the Capitol.
The agreement requires James to cooperate with federal authorities, testify before a grand jury, sit for interviews, and turn over an accounting of his financial assets.
The maximum penalty for seditious conspiracy is 20 years in prison, a fine of $250,000 and 3-year supervised release, along with other fees and penalties. James’ cooperation can be used in determining his sentencing, presiding Judge Amit P. Mehta explained to the court.
Without James’ full cooperation, as determined by the government, he will stand in violation of the agreement.
James acknowledged he was instructed by Oath Keepers leader Stuart Rhodes to be prepared to use lethal force if then-President Donald Trump was removed from the White House. Separately, he acknowledged that he, Rhodes and others planned to use “any means necessary” to stop the lawful transfer of power.
James admitted to assaulting an officer on the scene, grabbing him and yelling, “Get out of my Capitol.”
The 10 other alleged Oath Keepers charged in the seditious conspiracy plot, including Rhodes, have pleaded not guilty to all charges against them.
Lawyers for James did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
According to the indictment, James was a leader of a second “stack” of Oath Keepers who breached the building through the east side.
He is accused of forcing his way past law enforcement who were trying to guard the Capitol Rotunda, and of pushing his way past officers who were forced to deploy chemical spray against him.
(NEW YORK) — Hours after President Joe Biden’s inaugural State of the Union speech Tuesday night, restaurant and bar industry leaders called on the administration for action.
Chefs, restaurant owners and leaders of the Independent Restaurant Coalition spoke to media Wednesday in tandem with a new letter signed by over 100,000 restaurant employees urging the president and congress to add much-needed money to the bipartisan-backed Restaurant Revitalization Fund.
“I felt a little disappointed that it wasn’t addressed that our need is as dire as it is. The opportunity has not been lost, but that window is closing very quickly,” IRC board member, San Francisco-based chef, and co-owner of Che Fico, David Nayfeld said. “The president could have had an opportunity to recognize us in that moment, but it’s not too late. He can recognize it through action. I don’t care if we were in a speech, I care that the program gets refilled and that his actions speak to his values.”
The urgency of the IRC’s message comes nine days out from the March 11 expiration date for the Continuing Resolution, commonly referred to as the spending bill to add money to the RRF.
“The state of the union is not strong when neighborhood restaurants and bars are ready to close permanently,” Erika Polmar, executive director of the Independent Restaurant Coalition, said.
After nearly a year since the RRF became law, it has failed to support roughly two-thirds of eligible businesses that applied for the program, leaving out nearly 200,000 independent bars and restaurants with four out of five of those businesses in danger of closing permanently, threatening the nearly 11 million employees it supports.
— Independent Restaurant Coalition (@IndpRestaurants) March 2, 2022
IRC co-founder Tom Colicchio reiterated thanks for early support from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer along with others who came together in Washington, D.C., to include $28.6 billion for the industry as part of the American Rescue Plan, but said it’s not even close to enough.
“As great as that was that really only took care of about a third of the restaurant applicants — and he knew at the time that that money wasn’t enough — he actually called it a downpayment for our industry,” Colicchio, the Crafted Hospitality owner and restaurateur said. “It’s almost a year later since he made that declaration and there are almost 20,000 restaurants in New York City alone that have applied for grants and still have not received a dime.”
Like many, Colicchio’s own restaurants in New York City have been at the epicenter of multiple COVID-19 surges that prompt tighter restrictions, closures and smaller crowds, which has directly impacted business.
“I owe at least a million dollars in back rent. So all the business coming back is not going to do that. At a certain point I’m gonna have to make a decision if I can’t pay my landlord, I’ll have to declare bankruptcy and close cause there’s no way we can find that in the current business we have now. Eventually landlords are going to run out of patience and restaurant owners will be closing their doors in droves,” he said.
Nayfeld said as the third year of the pandemic nears, it has become “impossible for most restaurants to withstand the compounding debt, rising costs, revenue-decimating local restrictions, and COVID-19 surges without dedicated help from Congress.”
“Replenishing RRF is the only way independent restaurants and bars can recover from the past two years of economic trauma that we’ve endured and the aftershock we’ll continue to experience,” he said. “To take that little bit of money to reopen a business, buy back inventory, get a little momentum for six to seven weeks, then shutdown again, that loss of momentum is so detrimental to the business — Omicron was something for a lot of restaurants was the arrow through our bodies that’s gonna make us limp along and die from later.”
He continued: “If I could make a plea to Speaker Pelosi, my elected official, I would ask that she drive down the streets of downtown San Francisco and see the boarded up cafes, restaurants and bars that won’t come back without assistance — Even the owners of the ones that look busy, I promise you they would say that they’re stressed, their bank accounts are dwindling, in debt to their eyeballs and they don’t see a solution.”
President Biden addressed the economy and inflation on Tuesday night, but Colicchio said while problematic for the restaurant ecosystem, it’s not the primary pain point for the tens of thousands of independent owners and operators seeking relief from the last two years.
“Prices of food are going to go up — that’s why the restaurants that didn’t receive grant money are at a competitive disadvantage,” he said. “The roughly $40 billion we’re asking for will cover the grants for all the restaurants that have applied and I don’t believe that that’s going to be inflationary. A lot of that money is not gonna go out and be spent, it’s going to pay bills that are already there.”
Inflation paired with increasing fuel prices will inevitably impact the local, independent restaurant supply chains and Colicchio said that “upscale restaurants have pricing elasticity” to stay nimble. But without support from government grants, he said, “all the small neighborhood restaurants that don’t have that — are going to get really hurt and those are the restaurants that we’re really fighting for. Those mom and pops and neighborhood restaurants cant raise prices by 15%, the clientele won’t absorb that. Another reason why we need to complete this funding. We’re not asking for anything additional from our original position, we’re just asking for government to finish their job.”
At least 90,000 restaurants and bars have closed since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the IRC. Unemployment rate for leisure and hospitality is still 8.2%, about double the economy-wide rate, as restaurant and bar employment is still down 984,700 below its pre-pandemic levels.
Polmar explained, as detailed in a January IRC report, that “neighborhood restaurants and bars are deeper in debt and exhausted every possible option. Our industry is organizing for the second time in five weeks because the only hope we have is for our elected officials to hear our pleas and ensure every single restaurant and bar has the relief they need to survive the pandemic.
