A local restaurant owner is hoping the provincial government will come around and add her — and others like her — to the list of small, local businesses needing a break.
Bill 236 — Supporting Local Restaurants Act, 2020 — will prohibit food delivery service providers (Skip the Dishes, for example) from charging restaurants more than the prescribed amount for those services.
Currently, food delivery services charge restaurants a fee anywhere from 28 to 30 per cent. Receiving Royal Assent on Dec. 2, Bill 236 will reduce that fee to 15 per cent.
Kunal Patel, who owns Quesada Burritos & Tacos at Bayfield Street and Ferris Lane, is like everyone else in the restaurant business who are working hard to keep the doors open.
Because her Quesada store is a franchise, it is excluded from the reach of the bill.
“I know that everyone is saying how important it is to buy local, but I don’t think they realize that we are the franchise that is local,” Patel told BarrieToday. “All of us here are local.”
Patel has lived in Barrie for 17 years and, despite being a busy mom of two boys, she opened Quesada in February 2017. On May 5, to coincide with Cinco De Mayo, she had 46 meals delivered to the Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre and said at the time that she “just wanted to do something to give back.”
Patel is urging the province not to exclude franchisees from Bill 236 and to see her and many others for what they are, which is part of the community.
“There are multi-million-dollar food franchises that put tons of money into investment for a drive-thru and whole concept. The opposite of that is where the owner has developed everything on their own and is always viewed as a small, local business,” Patel said. "The middle one is like me: Wanting to put less money in and use the model of the franchise because there are already recipes and such available. I can worry about making the food up, meeting the people and enjoying my business.”
Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte MPP Doug Downey said that Ontario’s small and independent restaurants have shouldered an outsized share of COVID-19’s economic burdens, but have continued to serve their communities.
Downey said Bill 236 is aimed to help businesses most at risk.
“Larger corporations and chain restaurants have negotiating power with food delivery services, and can broker better rates that small businesses are unable to match,” Downey told BarrieToday. “This measure balances the need to protect delivery drivers’ wages, restaurants’ access to delivery services, consumers’ rates, avoids shrinking delivery areas, and protects Ontario’s most vulnerable small businesses.”
Downey says the legislation is aimed at protecting small businesses, like similar laws in the United States, and with it “is helping local businesses stay in business, and providing a solution that will help our local restaurants when every little bit helps," he said.
