A2
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2020
Pacifi c Way Cafe to close after 32 years
IN BRIEF
Hundreds protest
stay-at-home order in Salem
SALEM — Hundreds of people turned out at the Ore-
gon State Capitol on Saturday for a #ReOpenOregon rally.
People came and went during the rain, lining both
sides of the street in front of the Capitol, which has been
closed to the public for several weeks as a public health
precaution.
Demonstrators held signs and waved American fl ags
as vehicles circled the Capitol, honking their support.
Some participants wore masks and maintained social dis-
tances. Others gathered together.
A group calling itself Oregon Uniting for Liberty orga-
nized the Salem rally, which was endorsed by the Oregon
Republican Party and other organizations.
Signs included “Fear is the virus,” “Freedom is bi-parti-
san,” “My freedom does not end where your fear begins,”
“Unlock Oregon,” “Fire Gov. Brown, reopen Oregon,”
“Boycott China” and “Gov. Brown, I went to church on
Sunday. Please don’t arrest me.” Other signs supported
President Donald Trump and Republican candidates.
“This isn’t a partisan political event, but instead a pub-
lic rally to rescue our livelihoods and freedoms from
being extinguished by a government that has forgotten
that, in America, government must operate with the con-
sent of the governed,” Bill Currier, the GOP chairman,
said beforehand.
— Oregon Capital Bureau
Oregon wave energy project
enters permitting phase
An innovative wave-energy project proposed for Ore-
gon has entered a key stretch as it seeks the environmental
approvals needed to move forward.
Oregon State University’s PacWave testing array
would be located about 2 miles offshore. An underwater
cable would connect the array to the electrical grid just
north of Waldport on the state’s central coast.
The project is designed to help facilitate the develop-
ment of technology that generates electricity using the
movement of waves. The idea is to create a space for
wave energy developers to test their designs in real-world
conditions without having to go through individual envi-
ronmental permitting processes, which take signifi cant
time and money.
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality
is holding a public teleconference hearing on May 14 to
address water quality concerns arising form the project.
— Oregon Public Broadcasting
DEATHS
Hughes-Ransom
Mor-
tuary is in charge of the
arrangements.
April 30, 2020
BERGLUND,
Jack
S., 78, of Astoria, died in
St. Helens. Groulx Fam-
ily Mortuary of Rain-
ier is in charge of the
arrangements.
DENNING, Deborah
Ann, 69, of Warrenton,
died in Warrenton. Cald-
well’s Luce-Layton Mor-
tuary of Astoria is in charge
of the arrangements.
In Brief: May 5, 2020
Deaths
May 3, 2020
THWING, Teresa, 64,
of Warrenton, died in War-
renton. Hughes-Ransom
Mortuary is in charge of
the arrangements.
May 1, 2020
MILLER, John Fred-
rick, 68, of North Bend,
formerly of the Asto-
ria area, died in Coos
Bay. Coos Bay Chapel
is in charge of the
arrangements .
OWEN, Scott, 52, of
Seaside, died in Seaside.
ON THE RECORD
Assault
ton, was arrested Friday
On
•Mark the
Edward Record
War- at Walmart in Warren-
ren, 34, was arrested Sun-
day behind Goodwill in
Warrenton for assault in
the second degree, men-
acing and possession of
methamphetamine.
Theft
• Christine Cook, 28,
of Rosburg, Washing-
ton for theft in the second
degree.
DUII
• Cindy J. Brown, 62,
of Roseburg, Oregon,
was arrested Thursday on
W. Marine Drive in Asto-
ria for driving under the
infl uence of intoxicants.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
TUESDAY
Clatsop County Board of Commissioners, noon, work
session (electronic meeting).
Port of Astoria Commission, 4 p.m., (electronic meeting).
Seaside Library Board, 4:30 p.m., (electronic meeting).
Clatsop Care Health District Board, 5 p.m., (electronic
meeting).
Miles Crossing Sanitary Sewer District Board, 6 p.m.,
34583 U.S. Highway 101 Business.
Seaside Planning Commission, 6 p.m., (electronic meeting).
WEDNESDAY
Seaside Urban Renewal District, 6 p.m., budget meeting
(electronic meeting).
Seaside Road District, 6:30 p.m., budget meeting (electronic
meeting).
Gearhart City Council, 7 p.m., (electronic meeting).
THURSDAY
Sunset Empire Park and Recreation District, 3 p.m., (elec-
tronic meeting).
PUBLIC MEETINGS
Impact from
coronavirus
pandemic
By R.J. MARX
The Astorian
GEARHART — The
Pacifi c Way Cafe at the
southeast corner of Pacifi c
Way and Cottage will close
after serving as a gather-
ing place and special occa-
sion dining destination for
32 years.
After meeting with chef
Geoff Gunn on Saturday,
owners Lisa and John Allen
told their 20 full-time and
part-time employees that
the cafe will permanently
close because of fi nancial
impacts from the coronavi-
rus pandemic.
“We all three knew this
was insupportable,” Lisa
Allen said. “We knew it
would not be a viable busi-
ness without revenue to sup-
ply employees and food
cost. We cannot fi nancially
ruin ourselves to the point
where we would sell our
home and live on the street.”
“John and I agonized
over this,” Lisa Allen said.
“When this pandemic fi rst
hit, we were on a one-week
break, a closure. Instead of
going on vacation, we had
the idea to renovate the din-
ing rooms at the cafe. We
repainted, we had brand-
new cushions sewn for the
chairs. We spent $10,000.
The dining room has never
looked more beautiful —
and now no one will ever sit
in it.”
With social distancing
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rules, the cafe — which is
comprised of a collection
of intimate dining areas —
would cut the number of din-
ers by 50%, she said. “You
can’t make a living with
that. I could not even bring
back one cook. We could not
fi nancially sustain that.”
The Allens applied for the
Small Business Administra-
tion disaster relief program
without result. “We applied
for the PPP (Paycheck Pro-
tection Program) and heard
nothing back from our bank
or from anyone,” Lisa Allen
said.
Gov. Kate Brown’s
extension through July 6 of
Oregon’s state of emergency
for COVID-19 was the fi nal
blow.
The Allens dreamed of
opening a restaurant inspired
by their own favorite dining
experiences, from Portland
to Paris.
When the building at 601
Pacifi c Way — formerly a
restaurant called Eat Your
Heart Out — became avail-
able, the couple jumped.
“I called John at home and
said the building’s for sale, I
want it,” Lisa Allen said. “I
had always dreamt of having
a place people could walk to
and ride their bikes to, have
dessert, have a meal.”
The Allens opened the
cafe in 1988.
“We didn’t have table
service in the beginning,”
Lisa Allen said. “We had
numbers people took and
we delivered to the table.
We had a 6-foot long des-
sert case, a deli case —
the format was completely
different.”
Eventually, the cafe
began serving lunch, dinner
and hiring their fi rst chef,
Gretchen Day. “It just grew
from there,” Lisa Allen said.
“The community, the locals
really loved it.”
The Allens made local
headlines in the late 1980s
and early ’90s when Gear-
hart’s City Council moved
to shut the cafe down, citing
zoning rules that prohibited
eating and drinking estab-
lishments in the downtown
Senators: ‘Pandemic has exacerbated
an already fragile food supply chain’
Continued from Page A1
year, or $75,000, whichever
is lower, to help businesses
with fewer than 50 employ-
ees and less than $1 million
in gross revenue .
Small business owners
have complained they have
largely missed out on the
Paycheck Protection Pro-
gram and Economic Injury
Disaster Loan intended to
help cover payroll and other
expenses for businesses with
fewer than 500 employees.
“I just think in all these
packages, small business
has really been the forgotten
constituency, so I’ve really
zeroed in on that,” Wyden
said by phone Monday.
The Oregon Democrat’s
proposal would help pro-
vide the liquidity many small
businesses rely on to stay
open, he said.
Merkley is asking Con-
gress to buy $2 billion in sea-
food as part of the next coro-
navirus relief bill.
The seafood industry
received $300 million from
the fi rst $2 trillion corona-
virus relief package passed
in March. But Merkley said
during the virtual town hall
that the previous relief pack-
age isn’t enough for a seafood
industry losing much of its
domestic market with restau-
rants shuttered and more peo-
ple cooking at home and eat-
ing less fi sh.
“That translates to the
prices our fi shermen are paid,
and the ability to sustain the
entire coastal fi shing econ-
omy, ” the Oregon Democrat
said.
His proposal will target
the types of fi sh usually sold
at restaurants. In addition to
the seafood purchases, Merk-
ley’s idea would pump $1.5
billion into the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration for targeted
relief to damaged fi sheries
across the country.
Wyden said he hopes to
have a lot of frozen seafood
in a strategic food reserve he
has asked the U.S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture to sup-
port in Oregon.
“The COVID-19 pan-
demic has exacerbated an
already fragile food sup-
ply chain in Oregon and the
nation,” Wyden wrote in a
letter to Agriculture Secre-
tary Sonny Perdue. “The
farmers and agriculture pro-
ducers who help feed my
state have been hit hard by
this pandemic and the need
for a program that provides
long-term stability in times
of crisis, has never been more
apparent.”
Wyden asked for emer-
gency food supplies to fi ll a
70% increase in demand food
banks have experienced and
said the USDA could sup-
port farms and ranches with
loans, purchases, payments
and other operations; buying
and donating food to domes-
tic relief agencies; and devel-
oping new domestic markets
for agricultural commodities.
“I ask the USDA to use its
capacity to support the cur-
rent hunger needs in Oregon
and an Oregon-specifi c pro-
gram that identifi es immedi-
ate availability of food that
is in oversupply and at risk
of being dumped due to mar-
ket disruption,” Wyden wrote
to Purdue. “It can also work
with and pay Oregon pro-
cessors to freeze, aseptically
pack, dry and create shelf-life
for their product to go into
storage.”
Wyden, who helped cre-
ate the law expanding fed-
eral unemployment benefi ts
through July, including the
$600 weekly payments, said
he is also negotiating a trig-
ger that would extend the
expansion longer if employ-
ment hasn’t recovered.
“At the end of July, if the
economy has come back, it’s
not an issue,” he said. “But
if, say, there’s a lot of con-
tinued economic hurt, you
could have a trigger to ensure
the extra benefi ts were tied
to labor conditions on the
ground.”
Wyden and Merkley,
along with 31 other legis-
lators, have also pushed for
more funding for local, state
and tribal governments to
receive fl exible funding in
the next coronavirus relief
bill.
Democrats have pro-
posed more than $500 bil-
lion in such aid, with U.S.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
recently suggesting around
$1 trillion. Cities around the
U.S. are facing massive bud-
get shortfalls, including those
on the North Coast losing
lodging tax revenue to gov-
ernment restrictions over the
virus.
“Not only are these pub-
lic servants on the front line
of the immediate response
effort, they are also major
employers
navigating
unprecedented declines in
revenue just as the need for
their services hits an all-time
high,” the senators wrote
in a letter to Senate Major-
ity Leader Mitch McCon-
nell, a Kentucky Republi-
can, and Treasury Secretary
Steve Mnuchin. “We can and
we must work together to get
this essential funding to our
local partners as quickly as
possible.”
Ballots: ‘We all make mistakes, and
in life it’s how we deal with them’
Continued from Page A1
Established July 1, 1873
Pacifi c Way Cafe in Gearhart.
commercial district.
The Allens fought back in
the courts and won, enabling
the cafe to thrive for the
next three decades. In those
years, the cafe received
write-ups in The Oregonian,
Food & Wine, Saveur and
other publications for their
Pacifi c Northwest cuisine
served with a French fl air.
When the neighboring
building, which housed the
post offi ce, became avail-
able, the Allens expanded
and began serving pastries
and coffee to crowds that
would line up before 7 a.m.
for freshly baked marion-
berry scones, apple turn-
overs and veggie tarts.
The cafe became a social
headquarters for locals, with
visitors and regulars alike
engaged in conversation and
issues of the day.
The pandemic brought all
that to a halt.
The cafe’s business plan
is no longer sustainable,
John Allen said. “We’re in
the same situation practi-
cally all other restaurateurs
are in right now — and I
don’t see anything that’s
going to change that.”
The Allens plan on
reopening the bakery in a
different format, serving
baked goods, sandwiches
and grocery items on a take-
out basis. They hope to
reopen for business in June.
“It’s heartbreaking to see
it end,” Lisa Allen said. “But
it can’t go on.”
“This has been pretty
tough,” John Allen said.
“Thirty-two years and the
whole thing disappeared
overnight.”
“And that’s what they’re
doing,” he said. “We all make
mistakes, and in life it’s how
we deal with them.”
In 2018, County Clerk
Tracie Krevanko sent out
an updated county commis-
sion district map with bal-
lots for the May election after
the county voters’ pamphlet
contained outdated district
boundaries.
Maeve Kennedy Grimes
was fi red as county clerk in
2014 over her decision to
issue supplemental ballots
in the November election
when errors were discovered
in descriptions of a Clatsop
Community College bond
measure and an at-large Can-
non Beach City Council race.
Scott Somers, the county
manager at the time, claimed
the clerk was insubordinate
for not consulting him before
pursuing a directive by the
secretary of state to issue cor-
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rected ballots.
A jury awarded Kennedy
Grimes more than $400,000
in 2016 after she fi led a law-
suit over her dismissal.
In 2014, Kennedy Grimes
pressed for a special elec-
tion in the District 5 race for
county commission between
Lianne Thompson and Dale
Barrett after hundreds of vot-
ers were placed in the wrong
districts in the May election.
Thompson, who had led
Barrett by 81 votes in the
May election, prevailed by a
larger margin in the special
election in September.
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