Hammock promotes local businesses

By Michael Butler

It's not much of a stretch to say that business has been off in most places since the advent of COVID-19. Businesses in Tallassee are no exception.

Tallassee mayor Johnny Hammock is doing his part to help.

Hammock drove around town early one morning taking snapshots of some of the storefronts and posted the pictures on the City of Tallassee's Facebook page with a message: "Please support our local business when we get back to normal. Some of these businesses have been completely shut down due to this pandemic."

There were a lot of "amens" in response to the mayor's post but as with any social media activity, a few negatives surfaced too.

"I caught some stink," Hammock said. "I'm like, what is wrong with you people? How about you get up at 6 in the morning before you go to work. I couldn't get them all. Feel free to take a picture and make a post. Usually I get to City Hall at 7. I got there at 7:30.

"I was out taking pictures of businesses, as many as I could. Maybe I should've waited until I had them all. Somebody's always going to find something to complain about. One guy was talking about fake news. 'Why do you have these big corporations on here?' This guy was from Eclectic."

Regardless of the ownership structure, Hammock said all businesses play a part.

"They have employees that live in our town that depend on this business to function. If anybody's out there that works at a daycare, denist's office, whatever, feel free to send a picture of where you work that has been closed down or had some kind of restrictions. I'll post them on the city's Facebook page. I feel bad for these businesses."