It is staff’s recommendation that the City Council adopt Urgency Ordinance No. 907-U, thus repealing and replacing the City’s existing Commercial Tenant Eviction Moratorium, which was adopted on April 9, 2020 via Urgency Ordinance No. 904 due to the financial impacts of COVID-19.

On April 9, 2020, the City adopted Urgency Ordinance No. 904-U known as the “Commercial Tenant Eviction Moratorium” in response to the global novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that resulted in a stay-at-home order, social distancing protocols, and temporary business closures throughout California and the nation. The ordinance established a temporary moratorium on evictions of commercial tenants citywide to protect them from eviction due to nonpayment caused by the financial impacts of COVID-19. The moratorium currently applies to all businesses, despite the number of employees, and is set to expire on May 31, 2020, unless extended further. 

Staff is recommending a the adoption of a new urgency ordinance to accomplish the following:

1. Repeal, Urgency Ordinance No. 904-U and adopt Urgency Ordinance No. 907-U, which will make the moratorium only applicable to “Small Businesses" as defined by the Small Business Administration[1], the intent being to protect the small business community as opposed to large corporations with substantial financial resources; and

    

2. Extend the moratorium from May 31, 2020 to July 31, 2020 to allow small businesses additional time to recover from the State and County Health Officer closure order.

Due to the limited protection available to small businesses throughout the State and, for that matter, the Nation, staff believes it is in the City’s best interest to protect small businesses by adopting this new urgency ordinance that is applicable only to small businesses. Staff further recommends extending the eviction moratorium from May 31, 2020 to July 31, 2020 with ability to further extend, if necessary, by Council approval.

Although still not known, it is expected that absence of the subject moratorium could result in greater economic impacts than what is already being experienced by the community.