Shutdown: Car dealers laying off workforce, urging governor to refine ‘essential business’

Car dealers around the state have been forced to shut down and lay off workers, after Gov. Jay Inslee's 'Stay Home, Stay Healthy' order left out auto sales as an essential business.

Until this week, Phil Mitchell with the Sunset Auto Family, was the biggest employer in the city of Sumner, as the owner of the largest Chevy dealership in the state.

This week, he was forced to lay off 200 of his 270 employees, and the dealership was suddenly in a state of suspended paralysis.

“Just in the last couple of days we’ve had to go basically from being a thriving car dealership to no retail sales, we’re not allowed to sell cars,” Mitchell said.

When the coronavirus outbreak mandated social distancing, dealerships like Sunset were working with a new local live-streaming technology called Lot Vid where car shoppers can negotiate, buy and trade in cars without leaving home.

But even that was shut down.

“We’re not really even allowed to deliver the car according to what the Governor said,” Mitchell said.

The cost of the dealer shutdown to Washington State could be staggering. Car dealerships employ nearly 23,000 people with an annual $1.4 billion in payroll, and pump $18.1 billion in taxable revenue into the economy.

Phil Mitchell figured the state needed the tax dollars now more than ever. “We sell about 100 of the pickup trucks a month,” he said. The state would collect approximately $450,000 in tax revenue from those transactions in one month, from that dealership alone.

“We had two people approach us today, knocking on the window wanting to look at rigs,” said Derek Riley. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get keys and show them."

Other states like Oregon are allowing car dealerships to remain open as essential service, despite orders to shut down most other businesses. Dealership groups throughout the state are hoping for flexibility in the Governor’s order to include online sales.

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