Business owners suffer financially amid Washington Bridge closure

EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) — The domino effect of the I-195 West Washington Bridge closure is hammering the bottom lines of businesses located in traffic trouble spots.

Day-by-day, small business owners are hemorrhaging money, as their customers choose to avoid logjams gridlocking local streets.

For Albertino Milho, a longtime business owner of Madeira Restaurant on Warren Avenue in East Providence, the new year is not off to a strong start.

Milho said most of his regulars still come in, but people who are coming from out of town are not bothering to cross the Washington Bridge to get to East Providence.

“They only have so much time for lunch and they lose so much time on the bridge,” Milho explained. “That’s a problem for us.”

Milho said business is down roughly 50%, because people have been cancelling their takeout orders and large parties since the closure.

“We buy less from every company…we reduce because business is reduced,” Milho added. “We have to buy less.”

Bill Foeri, the owner of Digger’s Catch on North Broadway, is getting less orders and less customers too.

“My people can’t get here,” Foeri said. “All my customers from the East Side, from Seekonk, nobody wants to go to East Providence. There’s too much traffic.”

Foeri applied for the disaster loan assistance being offered to small business owners because of the bridge closure but is still waiting to hear back.

“I heard that they’re waiting to see how long the bridge is going to take…before they actually do something,” Foeri said. “[The SBA representative] said something about they were going to give us six months operating costs, but now they don’t know if six months is going to be enough. Is it going to be two years?”

There are still a lot of unanswered questions in East Providence and across Rhode Island, such as when business owners will get those loans.

Business owners can learn more about the disaster loan program being offered at East Providence City Hall.