Durante Rentals Shuts Down for the Week as a Precautionary Measure
Durante Rentals, based in Flushing, N.Y., with 10 locations in New York City, surrounding counties, New Jersey and Connecticut, announced today it will close operations for the remainder of this week because of health concerns caused by the coronavirus.
“We have decided to err on the side of caution and are proactively closing all rental facilities for the remainder of this week,” CEO Anthony Durante wrote in a letter to customers, sent by email and posted on its website. “We’re optimistic that other local businesses will follow our lead in hopes of limiting exposure to this dangerous virus.”
The company wrote that it is closely monitoring the news and adopting suggestions made by the Center for Disease Control and local authorities.
“The Durante team will continue to take every precaution necessary to ensure our employees, equipment, and facilities are safe and virus free,” the company added. “Up to this point, we have instituted extreme sanitizing protocols at all branches, instructed any employees with pre-existing medical issues to stay home, adopted a ‘no-handshake’ policy, and are urging any staff member that can work remotely from home to do so.”
The company said it is instituting the measures with the health of its employees, customers and communities in mind. It said it will be officially closed for the remainder of this week and will not be accepting any new orders or delivering equipment.
“The phone lines will remain open during this time by our remote workforce to support our first responders and other critical support services,” Durante wrote. “We will post another update by this weekend concerning business hours for the following week.”
Durante Rentals told customers if they have equipment on rent that is no longer needed, they could email their coordinator and call it off rent, sending a picture of the hour meter to avoid incurring additional rental charges.
For more information on Covid 19, check out: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/faq.html
About the Author
Michael Roth
Editor
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.