Covid-19 relief on the way for workers, small businesses, and renters

At last night’s City Council meeting, Councilmember Agran was proud to join with his colleagues to pass three important measures to help workers, small businesses, and renters throughout the City make their way through the pandemic. They include hazard pay for frontline grocery and drug retail workers, limiting third-party food delivery fees, and, crucially, the initiation of an Emergency Rental Assistance program. 

Hazard Pay

The ordinance to provide for hazard pay (an additional $4/hour for certain workers) was introduced by Mayor Farrah Khan. Council benefited from extensive testimony from frontline grocery store workers throughout Irvine. (Click here to listen to all their comments.) Their testimony was bolstered by overwhelming support from their patrons and the broader community.

As Larry put it last night, “We have so many people out there who are really at risk, who are suffering, and who are doing the hard work to help pull us through from beginning to end.” He went on to say, “The fact of the matter is large groceries, chains, stores, the pharmaceutical chains and so forth, all of them have experienced remarkably high profits. They are the unintended but nevertheless the economic beneficiaries of this terrible pandemic.”

The ordinance passed 3 to 2, with Mayor Khan and Councilmembers Larry Agran and Tammy Kim voting YES; Councilmembers Mike Carroll and Anthony Kuo voting NO.

The ordinance will take effect in approximately forty-five days. It requires larger grocery stores, pharmacies, and certain big-box stores to increase hourly wages by $4 if they have not already done so. Once implemented, the ordinance will remain in effect for 120 days.

Here is the originally proposed ordinance for reference.

Please note it has since been revised both in terms of number of employees and square footage requirements in order to not negatively impact smaller businesses. An updated version of the ordinance will be available in the lead-up to the February 23rd City Council meeting.

Limiting Third-Party Delivery Fees

Effective immediately, third-party delivery fees incurred by customers will not exceed 15% of the purchase price of the entire order, and service fees incurred by the restaurant will not exceed 5%. The objective is to limit the financial burden these fees place on small businesses and their customers who are already struggling under the exceptional economic strain resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic. The ordinance is available for reference here.

Emergency Rental Assistance Program

The City of Irvine will be receiving a combined $17.7 million from the State and U.S. Treasury Department to distribute for an Emergency Rental Assistance program. The program will prioritize low-income residents who, among other criteria, are unemployed or in a community disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. The program will be administered by the United Way OC on behalf of the City of Irvine and should start no later than March 15.

For more information on the action taken last night, refer here.

For further inquiries, please email rentalassistance@cityofirvine.org, or call 949-724-6185.