{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://stanton.house.gov/2021/6/with-venue-operators-past-breaking-point-stanton-demands-answers-from-small-business-administration", "With Venue Operators Past \u2018Breaking Point,\u2019 Stanton Demands Answers from Small Business Administration", "2021-06-10", "2021", "2021-06", "Democrat", "House", "AZ", "Greg Stanton", "S001211", "stanton.house.gov", "stanton", "https://stanton.house.gov/press-releases", "scraper", "Nearly six months after the $16.2 billion Shuttered Venue Operator Grant program was signed into law, fewer than one percent of the venues that applied for grants have received aid\u2014and Rep. Greg Stanton is asking the Small Business Administration to explain why.\n\nIn a letter to the SBA Administrator sent yesterday, Stanton said the agency has approved a mere 90 grants out of the more than 14,000 businesses and organizations that have applied. And only a single venue in Arizona has received funds.\n\n\u201cToday, a venue operator in my district wrote me: \u2018We are past our breaking point. We can\u2019t hang on any longer,\u2019\u201d Stanton said. \u201cPlease tell me: What are my constituents\u2014on the verge of closing their businesses forever\u2014supposed to do? What can I tell them to explain why the SBA can\u2019t get it together?\u201d\n\nStanton\u2019s letter summarized the SBA\u2019s disastrous rollout and execution of the grant program, starting with a three-and-a-half-month delay and a website crash on the launch day that forced small business owners to wait an additional three weeks just to apply for the grant.\n\nThe letter was picked up by Billboard, and Phoenix\u2019s Rebel Lounge\u2019s owner Steve Chilton spoke to the publication more about the urgency of the issue.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:57:00Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://stanton.house.gov/2021/6/with-venue-operators-past-breaking-point-stanton-demands-answers-from-small-business-administration"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7140259258449078, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}