Town of Fort Myers Beach, Chamber of Commerce come together to discuss support for small businesses

Mayor Ray Murphy of Fort Myers Beach, Lee County Commissioner Ray Sandelli, and Lee County Economic Development Director John Talmage will discuss relief measures for Fort Myers Beach businesses Friday afternoon.

The meeting is available on Zoom starting at 2:00 PM. You can find the link to the meeting here.

The beach has been closed for nearly a month and the Town of Fort Myers Beach is in the middle of a 90-day moratorium on rental reservations.

Businesses are hurting and people are anxious to get back to work. We spoke to the owner of an inn on Fort Myers Beach who tells us they’re losing about $5,000 a day.

“I would describe it as a paralyzing fear… You don’t know what to do… You’re just like oh my god what’s going to happen? Can we survive this is the question,” said Dan Andre, owner of Mango Street Inn.

Concerns like Dan Andre’s will be addressed in Friday’s virtual meeting.

Commissioner Ray Sandelli says the data they’re receiving from health officials is what will drive their decisions.

Sandelli says the shift to get these small businesses back on their feet—needs to happen in phases.

He stressed the last thing we want to do is open businesses too early, then have to force them to close yet again.

“I think we’re going to do it in phases so that we’re prudent with it… Again we don’t want to start and stop—we wanna make sure that once we get started we see that path increasing,” said Commissioner Sandelli.