Northwest Chamber of Commerce issued the following announcement on June 14.
U.S. Senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, along with Congressmen C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, John P. Sarbanes, and John K. Delaney (all D-MD), yesterday asked federal regulators to provide assistance and flexibility to Maryland seafood retailers – mostly small businesses that sell steamed crabs – that have been hit with new restrictions on the use of nutrition assistance benefits.
Under new rules, retailers are only allowed to accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) vouchers if less than half of their sales are prepared foods, like steamed crabs, otherwise they are classified as restaurants, which are not qualified to make SNAP transactions. Additionally, some seafood retailers must offer a variety of other food staples. The changes also require retailers to submit new sales documentation to verify SNAP eligibility.
The rollout of the new rules ignores the unique nature of crab carryout businesses, the lawmakers said in a letter addressed to United States Department of Agriculture Regional Administrator Patricia Dombroski. They are asking Dombroski to consider temporarily reinstating SNAP eligibility for affected Maryland retailers and providing a grace period to collect required sales data.
“Maryland is known for its seafood industry,” they said. “These products are often sold out of ‘crab shacks’ that are long-standing, family-owned ‘mom and pop’ shops, which may not have possessed the technology to track sales to determine whether they surpass the “Restaurant Threshold” when the rule was first implemented. With this in mind, we request that USDA provide some reasonable flexibilities for Maryland seafood retailers to help them better prepare for these requirements.”
Original source can be found here.
Source: Northwest Chamber of Commerce
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