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Opening Day Cancellation Hurts Downtown Restaurants

(CBS DETROIT) - Baseball fans will be skipping another Opening Day.

In 2020, the pandemic caused ballparks to shut down.

The fun returned in 2021 with limited seating and restrictions, but this year another event is blocking fans from the stands as the MLB Lockout causes a standstill.

"You got this side who says, 'hey, let's make a deal,' and this side is like, ok, we want to make the deal but the numbers aren't even close," Rico Beard of the Mike Valenti Show With Rico on 97.1 The Ticket.

The sports broadcaster told CW50's Cryss Walker negotiations could take months, leaving fans waiting for both sides to come to an agreement.

"The players are saying, 'hey just compensate us fairly and we can come back and stop trying to manipulate our contracts,' so, I think in the end you're going to get a band-aid, Cryss," Beard said.

"They'll fix this thing for maybe two, three years, and we'll be right back in this same situation in like 2025."

As fans stand by, the lockout could hurt the restaurant industry.

Timothy Tharp owns both the Checker Bar and Grand Trunk Pub in Downtown Detroit.

The businessman says many owners depend on events like Opening Day and the lockout could hurt their bottom line.

"I hope downtown businesses survive it. I know to some it's going to be a major hit that maybe they won't survive," Tharp said.

"Hopefully they will. At this point, a lot of restaurant and hotel and bar owners are used to pivoting, and pivoting, and pivoting. It gets exhausting but yeah, this is definitely another hit that we sure didn't need."

According to SpotOn, a software development company for restaurants, the industry experienced a slowdown in sales toward the end of December and into January mainly due to reduced hours and closures as a result of the Covid-19 Omicron variant.

 

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