EASTHAMPTON — The Board of Health is cutting the cost of 20 permit renewal fees in half next year to help businesses struggling amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’re trying to do everything that we can to help business owners,” said Board of Health Chair Maggie Hebert. “We just want them to stay in Easthampton and be successful.”
The permit renewal fees that have been reduced by 50 percent range from those for caterers and float tanks to tanning salons and tobacco sales.
Permit renewals are sent out in November, and to take advantage of the cost reduction, businesses must pay for them before March 1. The fee reductions do not apply to new permits.
Bri Eichstaedt, the city’s health agent, said she came up with the idea to cut fees after reading an article about other communities reducing or doing away with fees.
The fees were not eliminated entirely, she said, because of the need for the city to still bring in some money.
“To make it easy we just did 50 percent,” Eichstaedt said. “There was no magical equation.”
Eichstaedt ran the reduction idea by both Mayor Nicole LaChapelle and Hebert, and Hebert approved cutting the fees as chair of the Board of Health.
With the state preparing for a resurgence in COVID-19 cases, the reduction is mostly targeted toward brick and mortar establishments that have been suffering during the pandemic, Eichstaedt said. However, she said that businesses such as food trucks can also renew their permits earlier than they normally would to take advantage of the fee reductions.
Although there hasn’t been a big response to the announcement, Eichstaedt said, the owners of Tandem Bagel and The Black Labyrinth Tattoo Syndicate have expressed their gratitude.
Bera Dunau can be reached at bdunau@gazettenet.com.