Ric Cutillo has been in the restaurant business for nearly two decades He runs the Citizen Brewing Company with several partners and until recently, also ran Midtown Kitchen and Bar in Kensington,

“Rents have always been high but there is a lot of good foot traffic,” he says of the Kensington location. “It’s a good community, (so) it was worth taking the risk.”

The risk suddenly stopped paying off last month though when public health orders prompted by COVID-19 forced him to close his doors.

“We tried for the month of April to do whatever take-out we could,” he says, “But when you’re doing $200-$300 a day in takeout, you can’t cover those costs.”

Cutillo’s rent in Kensington was $17,000/month.

He couldn’t afford that and shut down.

Several others bars and restaurants around the city are in similar situations - now the federal and provincial governments are trying to open them again.

Governments will cover half the rent for businesses forced to shut down by public health orders in the wake of COVID-19.

The offer stands for April (retroactive), May and June.

To qualify, a business must pay less than $50,000/month rent and have seen revenues drop by at least 70 per cent.

They’ll also be expected to repay that money to the government unless their landlord slashes rent over those three months by 75 per cent.

In that case, the loan won’t have to be repaid.

“Basically, this is for small and medium-sized business that have been impacted by the pandemic,” says Alberta PremierJason Kenney, “The program will also be available to non profit and charitable organizations.”

The Alberta government will contribute a third of that, up to $67 million.

Ottawa will pick up the rest.

Cutillo says based on the new subsidy, he will likely go back to his Kensington landlord and see if they can strike a deal to keep his restaurant going.

But he also says repaying a government loan isn’t easy.

“It’s tough.  The government shuts you down and tells you you can’t operate but says I can give you a loan to keep it going” says Cutillo “How many more loans to do want to have on top of the ones you already have? You get to the point where you’re drowning in interest.”