Allie Trella-Jones

I never thought when I started a small business selling roller skates that I would be looking into, you know, what's happening in the government so closely.

The constant changing of tariffs and the constant changing of prices has not only made it an unusual environment for us to try to figure out what the year is going to be like, but it also poses a little bit of a challenge because our employees then have to go through and change the prices of each vendor.

Like all skateboards are made out of Canadian maple, for example.

So we can't get Canadian maple here.

We have to import it.

And so, you know, the price of skateboards is constantly changing as well, too.

So we took out a $100,000 loan in order to keep our business afloat.

We have been paying it back slowly.

So it's good that it's like a low-interest loan through the Small Business Association.

We are not planning on purchasing more inventory until we hear more from the Supreme Court.

And it seems like every month it just gets pushed back another month.

But...

We're hopeful that we'll hear something soon.

And I think that also not only myself as the small business buying in inventory, I think our vendors as talking to them, they're also holding out on buying inventory as well.

And so this creates a supply chain issue down the line for everybody.

There's this difference.

I used to wake up every day and be like so excited to go to work.

And I still do love my job.

I still do love to go in and it is a respite place for me.

But there is this like, there's just weight on my chest every single day because it's become so difficult that I question whether I want to continue, you know, regularly.