Maine Voices: Essential workers have earned the hazard pay Portland voters approved
We are proud to be keeping local people fed and healthy, but we shouldn’t have to bear the burden of the pandemic.
By Caleb HortonSpecial to the Press Herald
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I spend many nights a week working in close contact with hundreds of people. Officially, my store limits the number of customers, but everyone can see that this is regularly exceeded. I run into shoppers traveling from other states and those who pull their mask down to talk. Even lunch is no respite. Employees pack into the break rooms to unmask and eat, because with sub-zero temperatures outside, there’s no safe place to eat.
Bars and restaurants in Virginia will soon be able to serve alcohol until midnight
By Natalie Rubino
Virginia to relax COVID restrictions on restaurants
Bars and restaurants in Virginia will soon be able to serve alcohol past 10 p.m. Governor Ralph Northam announced today he’s easing up on some COVID-19 restrictions.
ARLINGTON, Va. (FOX 5 DC) - Bars and restaurants in Virginia will soon be able to serve alcohol past 10 p.m. Governor Ralph Northam announced Wednesday that he’s easing up on some COVID-19 restrictions in the Commonwealth.
Starting March 1, bars and restaurants can serve alcohol until midnight.
Restaurant managers and workers tell FOX 5 the eased restrictions will make a huge difference for business.
Portland area commercial brokers reflect on a challenging year
Retail and office space vacancies in greater Portland went up in 2020, but the industrial space sector remained strong, brokers say.
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Commercial Street saw “quite a bit of activity” on the real estate front despite the pandemic, according to Malone Commercial Brokers.
Michael Kelley / The Forecaster
PORTLAND The greater Portland commercial real estate market has taken a hit from the pandemic, with retail space and office space taking the biggest blows, according to new reports.
Retail vacancy rates in Portland, South Portland, Scarborough, Cape Elizabeth, Westbrook and Falmouth rose from 3.13% in 2019 to 4.04% in 2020 and could rise higher this year, according to a Malone Commercial Brokers analysis.
The Lincoln County News
December 30, 2020 at
Mexicali Blues
Mexicali Blues Marketing Manager Chelsey Chambers heads out to distribute masks. The Newcastle-based retailer distributed more than 5,000 child-sized face masks to schools in the communities where it has stores.
It’s the giving season, and Maine retailer Mexicali Blues is embracing the spirit of giving this year by donating over 5,000 child-sized face masks to local schools as part of its “Global Giving Sharing Smiles” charitable program. Each year, the small business gives back 1% of total sales to organizations that do a world of good, and despite changes and challenges, this year is no different.
For shop clerks and DJs, it’s the most wonderful time for their ears
Incessant Christmas music started earlier than usual this year, but even people who have to listen to it nonstop don t mind.
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Kristin Bingham, co-owner of Dean’s Sweets in Portland, loves to hear Christmas music at work and plays it “intensively” for a month.
Photo by Derek Davis/Staff Photographer
Loving Christmas music is not officially a job requirement for people who work at Dean’s Sweets in Portland, but it might as well be.
“Starting Dec. 1, we play all Christmas music, and we play it intensively,” said Kristin Bingham, co-owner of the Portland chocolatier. By intensively, Bingham means all day long and everything from Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” to actor William Shatner’s “Shatner Claus” album. She said her co-workers “kind of have to like Christmas music if they want to survive the season.”