DAYTON, Ohio (WKEF)– We’re just a few days away from the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. ‘The Hub’ will be closed for the entire week, so Dayton 24/7 Now’s, Kysha Hancock caught up with some business owners on the impacts this could have.
Beyond Grocery is one of the local businesses inside the hub, whose hours will be impacted because of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly taking over downtown Dayton in just a few days. Owner of the store, Jaye Willoughby said although they love serving the community, closing down while NATO is in town is their best option.
“We’re unsure about how many protesters are coming, we’re unsure about how many people are gonna come. Of course, we’ve been briefed on about what’s going on but because we’re unsure we just decided to close,” said Willoughby.
Willoughby told Hancock, she doesn’t think being closed for one week will have a tremendous impact on her business, especially because there’s other ways to gain customers and get the word out about the new store.
“Social media and the media in general and news is probably our biggest avenue of marketing to let people know what we have going on,” said Willoughby.
Community design studio Ligature Creative also sits in The Hub. It will be closed the rest of this week. Matt Meier, owner of the studio told Hancock how he’s preparing for the assembly.
“I’ve tried to push off meetings until next week and try to keep it as simple as possible for what possible disruption there might be,” said Meier.
With the building being closed, Meier said he doesn’t foresee big impacts for his clients.
“With the pandemic, I think we’re all able to adjust to a little bit more of a remote setting…this I just see as a similar opportunity to use our resources, use zoom,” said Meier.
Both Willoughby and Meier said although they don’t know what to expect, they’re excited for NATO and for others to explore Dayton.