Eighty percent of the companies were considered essential and had to develop a plan to function safely. The other nonessential businesses were forced to close. 

With Gov. Andrew Cuomo allowing Phase 1 reopening, manufacturing companies like NICHE, a company specializing in hand-blown light fixtures can begin to rebuild.

Jeremy Pyles, CEO of NICHE, tells News 12 it’s been a tough few years, and the sudden pandemic didn’t help.

The Beacon business has lost over $500,000 in profit within 10 weeks and the amount does not include the overhead price of keeping their empty factory afloat.

Pyles says with the county’s assistance, sorting through the motions on how to reopen under the ‘new normal’ has become their entire focus.

“It’s just literally taken my job off of focusing on the business….,” he says. “The landscape was changing not by the week or not even by the day, but literally changing by the minute.”

Harold King, Council of Industry’s president, says the state plans to give each industry safety guidelines to follow, likely more stringent than what’s already in place.

The owner of NICHE says he plans to rebuild his company as best as he can, saying in part, "The lockdown is starting to become vastly more destructive than the virus itself."

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