SUBSTITUTE
ORDINANCE
WHEREAS, The City of Chicago has worked tirelessly for over a year to help businesses and workers survive the most devastating pandemic in a century; and
WHEREAS, Chicago's businesses and workers persevered through the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis to provide critical services to City residents and to keep Chicagoans safe; and
WHEREAS, The City executed an array of robust emergency relief measures to provide businesses with much-needed financial support and regulatory relief during this uniquely challenging time in its history; and
WHEREAS, The City's emergency relief measures include providing Chicago businesses with more small business grant and loan relief than any other municipality in the Nation, totaling over $100 million; rolling out an Expanded Outdoor Dining program to enable restaurants to serve diners safely outside; issuing 241 outdoor dining permits to more than 400 establishments encompassing over 30 closed streets and 150 parking lots available for outdoor dining; reforming the sidewalk cafe permit-issuance process by expediting the permitting of approximately 1,000 sidewalk cafes, discounting the sidewalk cafe permit fee by 75%, and allowing permittees to expand their cafes in front of neighboring storefronts; establishing eight Chicago Business Centers across the City to provide additional licensing and business support in neighborhoods; and operationalizing an innovative pandemic public safety strategy to ensure adherence to health guidelines through education, including nearly 40,000 educational outreach calls to individual businesses; and
WHEREAS, With a robust COVID-19 vaccination program now underway, the City's focus must shift from economic survival to economic recovery; and
WHEREAS, The Chi Biz Strong Initiative ("Initiative") is a bold plan to jumpstart business growth, protect workers, and set the marketplace on a path towards a strong, rapid, equitable and long-lasting economic recovery; and
WHEREAS, This Initiative w...
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