MIDCOAST A total of 163 businesses in Knox and Waldo counties received aid money from the Maine Tourism, Hospitality and Retail Recovery Grant program.
Funding for the program originated from the federal Coronavirus Relief Fund with funding being provided to the first 2,500 approved applications from eligible tourism, hospitality and retail businesses in the industries of accommodation and food services; breweries; wineries; distilleries; retail trade; arts; entertainment; and recreation.
Applicants must have gross sales between $24,000 and $12 million annually and suffered a 20% or greater loss in gross sales as reported to the Maine Revenue Services on sales tax returns comparing either March 2019 through September 2019 to March 2020 through September 2020, for monthly filers, or April 2019 through September 2019 to April 2020 through September 2020, for quarterly filers.
three things they could have done immediately. the burn preapproved by the noaa. number two, we have the hay idea. other people offering ideas, we saw two demonstrations on this program. not using them. dutch government offers skimmers. they offered to help build a barrier. the boom is sitting in a wear maine. you know, i m getting criticized for saying why doesn t the administration do something. fishing, tourism and peaches being destroyed. as well as the fact with the moratorium on drilling you have the oil economy also an important part of the gulf economy is now being put on hold. governor jindal, very effective governor, very good manage per in this situation has been begging for permission to put sand berms out. the answer is, we don t know the impact. you know what, sand is a lot less of an impact than the oil for gosh sake. it is keystone cop mentality, it is in the management of this. reporter: did you offer
more importantly, they were going to send skimmers. the skimmers would have been able to remove 20,000 tons of oil and sludge a day. this was three days after. we didn t take it. we have all the booms that are sitting in that warehouse in maine. we have another company that had skimmers, they also offered. all these great ideas, why aren t they using any? this is an administration that doesn t understand the crisis is is not understand the cries is real. admiral allen hasn t been given the authority to make decisions on the spot and delegate authority which what you have to do in a crisis. when you have something big you break it down into little problems and start passing out the responsibility and none of that has been done. sean: we can burn. we can use chemical dispersements. we can t build barriers.
sean: citizens throughout the country have offered the administration a helping hand when it comes to cleaning up the disaster in the gulf. nearly all ignored among them a maine company that has miles of oil containment boom ready for use. oddly, neither the governor bp will buy it from them. the president of that company will join me in just a minute. maine senators olympia snowe and susan collins were so outraged they wrote a letter to secretary of intirior, ken al czar, noaa and thad allen urging them to buy the booms three weeks ago, nothing. the same to a texas banker who tried to respond to admiral allen s request for skimmers. mcallister will join me shortly offered up a dozen
done immediately. the burn preapproved by the noaa. number two, we have the hay idea. other people offering ideas, we saw two demonstrations on this program. not using them. dutch government offers skimmers. they offered to help build a barrier. the boom is sitting in a wear maine. you know, i m getting criticized for saying why doesn t the administration do something. fishing, tourism and peaches being destroyed. as well as the fact with the moratorium on drilling you have the oil economy also an important part of the gulf economy is now being put on hold. governor jindal, very effective governor, very good manage per in this situation has been begging for permission to put sand berms out. the answer is, we don t know the impact. you know what, sand is a lot less of an impact than the oil for gosh sake. it is keystone cop mentality, it is in the management of this. reporter: did you offer