In the News

HOLYOKE — Kevin and Jennifer Chateauneuf can’t let folks eat at the dining stools at Nick’s Nest, the 99-year-old hot dog stand on Northampton Street they’ve owned for 15 years.

And everyone — even U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield, who visited Thursday to talk about the federal Paycheck Protection Program — has to wear a mask when they come in to order.

Business is off 50% from where it should be at this normally busy time of year because of the coronavirus pandemic, Jennifer Chateauneuf said.

“Nobody is going out,” she said.

But the business with 10 employees is still open — it never closed it — and it plans to stay that way. Chateauneuf said she’ll even hire more “girls,” as she called her workers, to staff the soft-serve ice cream counter in a few weeks. It’s all thanks to a Paycheck Protection Program loan she received this week through New Valley Bank & Trust of Springfield.

“It’s a lifeline,” she said. “We wouldn’t have been able to keep going without it.”

The Chateauneufs hosted Neal, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, along with two other loan recipients, Peter Rosskothen, owner of the Log Cabin banquet facility, and Michael Zaskey, owner of Zasco Productions in Chicopee, and others.

“I can’t imagine Holyoke without Nick’s Nest and without the Log Cabin,” Neal said Thursday.

He defended the $660 billion Paycheck Protection Program as a vital job-saving resource for small businesses while acknowledging that it’s not without flaws. Neal said he wants to see it continued in a forthcoming round of coronavirus relief legislation he’s working on with other lawmakers this week

“(Paycheck Protection) is getting better,” he said. “I know there was a lack of guidance and clarity in the beginning. Now that is being worked out.”

This second phase of the Paycheck Protection Program rolls out as Massachusetts faces unprecedented unemployment, with about a fifth of the workforce filing for jobless benefits.

About 70,000 Massachusetts workers filed claims for unemployment insurance in the week that ended April 25, marking the sixth straight week the coronavirus crisis has been reflected in the labor market.

Neal said Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has told him that recipients of $2 million or more in Paycheck Protection Program loans will be audited, and some large companies that didn’t need money they received in the first round are returning it.

He said $60 billion in the most recent $310 billion allotment is earmarked for women-, minority- and veteran-owned businesses. Money is also flowing through small banks and credit unions likely to do business with smaller enterprises, Neal said. Publicly traded companies can also access the funds.

Critics have said it’s hard for minority-owned companies, who might not have banking relationships, to access the funds.

“It takes outreach,” said J. Jeffrey Sullivan, president of New Valley Bank & Trust in Springfield.

New Valley Bank, which opened last year, has processed 325 Paycheck Protection Program loans. Those loans have saved 4,000 jobs. Only about a third of the loans went to companies that were New Valley Bank clients before the crisis.

Sullivan said the bank is working with Springfield Neighborhood Housing Services to help identify minority-owned businesses that could be recipients.

“We are going 24/7,” Sullivan said.

One of his clients is Thoneroom Delivery Services, which operates out of the Amazon warehouse on Lower Westfield Road in Holyoke. The company got a Paycheck Protection Program loan that made it possible to meet payroll while ramping up to meet demand, owner Steve Williams said. He’s got 123 employees delivering packages as far north as Greenfield.

Rosskothen said he’s grateful for the loan his company received this week to meet payroll, rent and other expenses. He’s down to 25 employees from 300 with his eat-in businesses closed and sales of takeout meals slow at his Delaney’s Market stores in Wilbraham, Westfield and Longmeadow.

But there is a flaw, he said. In order to convert he loan to a grant he’s got to to bring back workers within eight weeks.

“We won’t be open that fast,” he said. “I don’t think in food or hospitality that eight weeks is realistic.”

His eat-in businesses won’t be able to fully reopen until state social distancing guidelines are loosened.

On Wednesday, Neal told mayors from around the country he hopes to include federal funding for state unemployment programs, as well as federal dollars to make up for lost revenue, in the next round of coronavirus response legislation. There will be more Paycheck Protection loan money as well.

On Thursday, he reiterated that support but added that the next legislation will include tax credits, which are popular with Republican lawmakers. Republicans have opposed aid to municipal governments.

Neal said the new bill would also include another payment to individuals.