In a situation that is developing day to day, pool/spa industry organizations are responding to concerns about coronavirus and COVID-19, its impact on the industry and how companies can serve as good citizens and maintain their own viability.
As the government continues to issue new advisories on an almost-daily basis, industry lobbyists are on the watch. In particular is the concern about whether service technicians can continue to maintain pools in areas that have mandated citizens to shelter in place. The California Pool and Spa Association and the Northeast Spa and Pool Association had to address this early on. Both are arguing that service technicians are exempt from shelter-in-place orders because they provide essential services. In California, for instance, all of the early shelter-in-place orders allowed exemptions for those who deliver products and services necessary to maintaining sanitation and essential operations of homes and businesses.
NESPA was advocating the same point in Bergen County, N.J., which was one of the first areas to shelter in place. “We’re coupling that with messaging that we are a socially distant service,” said NESPA Executive Director Dominick Mondi. “Pool service crews are one or two people, and they don’t have to interact directly with the homeowner.”
Additionally, CPSA issued a press release to alert public health officials and the media of the need to maintain their pools, even in schools and aquatics facilities that have shut down.
“I think homeowners and commercial enterprises — resorts, hotels, motels — should know that if you let your pool go, you’re trading one disease for another,” said CPSA Director of Government Relations John Norwood.
NESPA and its Connecticut chapter also has worked with building officials in Connecticut to move back the deadline to renew state pool builders licenses that are mandated.
“Things are changing literally day to day, but people I speak with want to do the right thing,” Mondi says. “They want to do their part to get through this public-health situation.”
