BOGOTA, Colombia – Jamer González organized about nine weddings, birthday parties or corporate lunches a month in his banquet hall in a working-class community in the Colombian capital, earning enough to live comfortably and send his two eldest daughters to college.
Now, after months of pandemic restrictions, he is on the verge of bankruptcy and can’t even afford to rent a circle of family members at home. As a result, his daughters dropped out of college and the family circle moved into Pegasus Events. Hall, which was once a subsistence.
The circle of relatives of five and their white cat sleep in rooms that were used to buy tables, chairs and party items, adding a giant throne that is used for quinceanera celebrations, the parties that families have when a daughter turns 15. An old Ford González sedán scheduled for weddings is parked in the main lobby, next to a table he brought from his old apartment.
“We’re asking for charity,” said Gonzalez, who hasn’t been able to throw a party since March because of the rules of employer closure. “All we’re asking the government is to let us work. “
Colombia has reopened the economy after six months of pandemic restrictions, but some businesses, including cinemas, bars and banquet halls, remain closed while authorities review indoor meetings.
Representatives of these industries urge the government to let them open, with biosecurity measures, and warn that thousands of family business circles are on the brink of disappearance.
“Our sector has been greatly affected,” said Francy Salazar, president of the Colombian Association of Event Organizers, a 1,700-member professional organization. Salazar said organizers twice committed suicide over the pandemic while being overtaken by debt and uncertainty.
Others have moved in with relatives and are suffering to pay for fitness insurance. Event planners were too well-off before the pandemic to qualify for government fitness care.
“The government says we want to reinvent ourselves,” Salazar said, “but we didn’t have any support. “
Local officials have been reluctant to allow indoor meetings, fearing a momentary wave of coronavirus infections like the one that has recently affected Western European countries.
In Bgota, where Gonzalez has her business, Mayor Claudia Lopez said last week that clubs, bars and banquet halls could open until next year.
“There will be many families who will gather in DecemberArray . . . and the contagion is going to accumulate, it’s inevitable,” the mayor said.
For companies to survive, President Ivan Duque’s administration granted borrowers a two-month moratorium on loan bills at the beginning of the pandemic and promised to subsidize up to 40% of the payroll of small and medium-sized enterprises.
Gonzalez said he was the one who should take advantage of the subsidy because his business is entirely family owned and does not have a solid payroll.
“When we host an event, my daughter takes pictures, my wife takes care of the ornament and my daughter makes the videos,” she says. “We paint collectively, but none of us are indexed as an employee. “
He claimed that before the pandemic occurred, his banquet broker and corporate occasions made a profit of approximately $4,500 consistent with monthly sales of $15,000. The family circle earns around $250 per month to sell balloons and floral compositions to others who throw parties at home.
Gonzalez said that in the business he had invested about 250 thousand dollars, adding the structure of the banquet hall, permits, furniture and accessories.
It takes several months with the loan payment of $1,100 per month for the room and is under pressure from the bank to refinance the loan. The circle of relatives fears that the bank will regain ownership of the room, leaving them without their belongings and their homes.
“Before the pandemic, we were a general circle of family members with dreams,” Gonzalez’s wife Angela Camarpass said. “Now we can’t even pass out to eat. “
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