REGION — Among North County cities, Carlsbad is home to the most businesses — by far — that received federal stimulus dollars from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).
Since late March, the federal government has approved half-a-trillion dollars in low-interest loans to businesses and other organizations in order to help them survive the economic fallout from COVID-19.
The feds will forgive the loans, effectively turning them into grants, for recipients who use the money to keep their workers employed and maintain salary levels.
For the first time since the stimulus began, the federal government this week released data about recipients — including business names and addresses for organizations receiving loans of more than $150,000.
The Coast News has taken a preliminary look at that data for North County, with more reporting to follow as we continue to investigate recipient businesses and their financial stakeholders. For the time being, we’ve provided all California data for readers to explore in the interactive map format below.
INTERACTIVE MAP: Bubble size represents the loan-size category. Click the arrow in the left-hand corner for the map key. Click bubbles for more information on loan recipients. Zoom in for local businesses. Zoom out for statewide loan data. Graphic by Dan Brendel
After cleaning up erroneous entries in the raw federal data, we found nearly 2,100 large loan recipients in North County.
Carlsbad is home to the most with 565 recipients or 27% of the North County total.
For large loans, the feds didn’t disclose specific dollar amounts but reported five loan-size categories. The lowest range is $150,000 to $350,000, the highest is $5 million to $10 million.
Loans of less than $150,000 were reported separately, but without the names or addresses of recipients included.
We counted nine North County businesses that received loans in the highest category ($5 million to $10 million). These include:
Carlsbad: SeaSpine Holdings (medical implants manufacturer), Islands Restaurants (burger chain), Two Jinn (bail bonds) and Rubio’s Restaurants (Mexican food chain);
Encinitas: Manna Colorado and Manna Development Group (two restaurant franchisees under common leadership, each receiving a separate loan) and Urban Plates (a California restaurant chain);
Oceanside: Car Sound Exhaust System, parent company to MagnaFlow (car parts manufacturer);
San Marcos: Hospitality Team Members (an “employment services” firm).
