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The devastating water outage that has forced some Atlanta residents to go up to five days without drinkable water has also taken a hefty financial toll on Black business owners like Jason Davis.
The 45-year-old Davis is the owner of Aiskrimu, a 9-month-old ice cream parlor located in Cascade Heights and one of several neighborhood retail stores that lost water service beginning Friday after an “aging pipe” broke near the intersection of Joseph E. Boone Boulevard and J.P. Brawley Drive in Vine City.
It was the first of at least three water main breaks over the weekend that crippled water service in parts of the city, compelling Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens to declare a state of emergency on Sunday.
Dickens’ office confirmed Wednesday morning that water service has been “fully restored” throughout the city, though a boil advisory remained in effect at 7:30 a.m. for parts of Atlanta north of Interstate 20, including Midtown and Cabbagetown.
Davis said his foot traffic has taken a nosedive since the water crisis began. He and his two employees used “jugs of water” he bought from a nearby Walmart to wash their hands while trying to keep their business open during an area boil advisory that he said started Sunday and ended Tuesday.
The married father of two said Aiskrimu, a Swahili term meaning “ice cream,” typically receives a minimum of 100 transactions per day during the weekend. But since Friday, he’s only received about 25 per day at a time when many brick-and-mortar small-business owners in historically Black neighborhoods are struggling to pay elevated rents due to inflation. At one point, Davis said he was forced to send his workers home without pay due to business slowing down.
“A lot of people in the community automatically assumed all the businesses were closed,” Davis told Capital B Atlanta on Tuesday. “We had a significant decline in customers coming in on the weekend, which is our busiest time.”
Davis is one of several Black entrepreneurs calling on the Atlanta City Council to approve funding to help small-business owners impacted by the water emergency make up for lost revenue.
Council member Matt Westmoreland introduced a related ordinance on Monday after consulting over the weekend with officials from the mayor’s office and Invest Atlanta who have heard local business owner complaints about the water outage. The idea originated from community leaders and business owners, according to Devin Barrington-Ward, managing director of Black Futurists Group, a local social justice organization advocating on behalf of Black small-business owners including Davis. Barrington-Ward raised the same concerns during a City Hall press conference on Monday.
“[Our hope is that] at some point soon, this is going to be a part of their recovery plan, providing some financial relief and restitution to the businesses that saw revenue losses because of the water crisis,” Barrington-Ward told Capital B Atlanta.
The legislation would give Invest Atlanta, the city’s economic development authority, up to $5 million to create a city of Atlanta “recovery fund” for small businesses impacted by the water outage, according to Council President Doug Shipman.
“There would be a process by which they could show they had been impacted, and then they could receive funding,” Shipman told Capital B Atlanta on Tuesday. “I would assume there will be a cap on the maximum that any one business can get.”
As of Tuesday night, the drafted ordinance wasn’t viewable online, but a PDF copy provided by Shipman to Capital B Atlanta showed it has been signed by a majority of City Council members, including Jason Winston, Howard Shook, Andrea Boone, Mary Norwood, Antonio Lewis, Jason Dozier, Liliana Bakhtiari, and Byron Amos.
Council members Amir Farokhi and Dustin Hillis weren’t present for Monday’s full council meeting.
Shipman said the legislation must be approved by the council’s finance committee next week before it can ultimately be approved by the full council as soon as June 17.
Davis voiced support for the bill on Tuesday, saying Black-owned businesses like his were already facing enough challenges prior to the water crisis.
“Any assistance we can get from the city is going to be a plus,” he said.
Several Atlanta residents sounded off about the weekend water woes during the public comment portion of Monday’s full City Council meeting inside city hall.
One of them was Wykeisha Howe, who complained about the city’s aging infrastructure and demanded Dickens’s resignation over the crisis. Dickens has been criticized for traveling to a fundraising event in Memphis, Tennessee, for his reelection campaign while Atlanta’s water debacle was unfolding on Friday.
“He didn’t have to go do no fundraiser at all,” Howe said on Monday. “We’re looking for a new mayor and new council members as we speak. We’re over y’all’s bullshit.”
Dickens’ office told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday that the city has experienced “roughly 530” water main breaks or leaks over the past 12 months, suggesting Friday morning’s water main break seemed routine at the time and no cause for alarm.
The mayor returned to the city on Saturday morning after it was clear the issue was more serious.
“He was on the ground in Memphis for less than 24 hours,” Howard Franklin, a senior adviser on the mayor’s reelection campaign, told the AJC.
Dickens told City Council on Monday that he’s tapped the Army Corps of Engineers to help with resolving the water crisis.
LaChandra Burks, the city’s chief operating officer, acknowledged the age of Atlanta’s water pipes is a major concern that needs to be addressed.
“We are repairing items from the 1920s, 1930s and ’40s,” Burks said on Monday. “Our infrastructure is crumbling. We do know that, and we take no arguments against that.”
Burks said the city is working with the federal government to complete an assessment on Atlanta’s water pipes to determine what needs to be done to reduce the chances of this happening again in the future.
“Will this prevent water main breaks? Absolutely not,” she said. “What we’re hoping to overcome is being able to get to work through issues such as this in a more timely manner.”
The mayor’s office said work crews have fixed the water main break at the intersection of West Peachtree Street and 11th Street and restored water service in Midtown.
“The boil water advisory is still in effect out of an abundance of caution and in accordance with Georgia EPD [Environmental Protection Division] guidance for public advisory,” a notice on the mayor’s office webpage said Wednesday morning.
In a statement, Dickens said the city appreciates “the patience and cooperation of our residents and businesses during this challenging time.”
“Together, we have demonstrated the resilience that defines our city,” he said.
Read the proposed water relief fund ordinance below:
Correction: An earlier version of this story mischaracterized how the proposed relief fund ordinance came about. Atlanta City Council member Matt Westmoreland introduced the legislation after consulting over the weekend with officials from the mayor’s office and Invest Atlanta.
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Chauncey Alcorn is Capital B Atlanta's state and local politics reporter. More by Chauncey Alcorn
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