COVID-19 has had a negative effect on many local businesses, but one as been able to turn the pandemic into a positive.

NuTech Fire and Safety sells personal protective equipment and in March, because of supply problems, owner Bob Dieno had to lay off his entire staff.

He says while business was down 80 percent in April and 40 percent in May, things are looking much better this month.

“It appears June, I’ve got my entire staff back and in June we should be basically back to normal as the restrictions lift, people need their fire work done and so we’re getting very much back normal but it was a big hi,” Dieno said, on the NL Morning News.

“I laid off every one off my staff off the start because I had no idea.”

Dieno admits he feels lucky considering what other business owners are facing.

“We’ve done remarkably well compared to a lot of businesses, I’ll take what we’ve got. And being honest we are almost back to normal now after three months so it’s a big relief as a business owner, a big relief,” he added, noting he did lose

“There was one big toll. Between my two branches I lost three employees, they had time to look for other work and they took jobs elsewhere so one of the other impacts of this COVID stuff was laying people off and I lost good employees because they were able to find work elsewhere.”

As far as losing customers to other suppliers, Dieno doesn’t think he has as he thinks he was able to get products to people better than most other businesses in their industry, so if anything, he figures they’ve actually gained some customers.