Retail wine sales soar but wineries still suffer revenue slump
Tri-county wine tasting rooms and restaurants likely won’t reopen to visitors soon, but consumers are still buying and drinking wine. The Nielsen Co. reported that wine sales at grocery and drug stores soared 27 percent in the week ending March 14 when compared to both the previous and the year-ago week. Wineries are getting higher Read More →
Demand spikes at tri-county food banks due to COVID-19 layoffs
In the past month, the FoodBank of Santa Barbara County has quadrupled the amount of food it’s distributing to members of the community. Even still, families will line up hours in advance for food distribution, and supplies will be gone within 15 minutes of the first box being passed out. “The scale is different than Read More →
COVID-19 pandemic killing tri-county tourism
An unprecedented level of uncertainty has gripped the travel and tourism industry across the Tri-Counties, forcing temporary shutdowns for some and a re-evaluation of plans for companies, workers and tourism promotion agencies. No one knows when business will go back to normal, and it’s hitting the tourism industry hard when bookings should be strong. Visit Read More →
Dubroff: Loan program will stabilize America’s small businesses
Within the next week or so, thousands of small companies are going to be applying for loans — and possible loan forgiveness — under the Paycheck Protection Program or PPP that’s part of the $2 trillion in federal funding approved under the CARES Act. I’ve been studying the PPP since the first details began to Read More →
MindBody lays off hundreds of Central Coast employees
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Gerhardt and Wilson: Everyone must fight COVID-19
By Drs. Nels Gerhardt and Brett Wilson We are emergency physicians at Cottage Health. We live and work in this community, so we are also your neighbors, friends, and the local doctors who may diagnose your child’s ear infection at 3 a.m., or fix your broken wrist. These are trying times and nowhere is the Read More →
Tri-county hospital rebuilds make room for beds
The tri-county region, like the rest of California, is likely to face shortages of hospital beds and other medical resources during the coronavirus pandemic, but the bed shortage could be made less severe by the region’s recent hospital building boom. Until the pandemic, parts of the region had an oversupply of potential hospital beds — Read More →
