A historic business in Platte County is struggling to stay afloat during the pandemic as its current owner works to restore it."We've tried to keep the building as original as we possibly can," said Greg Trial, who bought Farley Mercantile two years ago. More than 140 years of history are tucked within the general store's walls. "We find treasure all the time. We found horseshoes and buggy wrenches," he said. "Our goal was to step in from 2021 and when you walk through the threshold you step back to 1900."Trial says it's one of the oldest continuously running business in Platte County. Half of the time he's spent as its owner has been during a pandemic. "It's made it difficult," he said. "You can't ring sales through the register but the cost of the building, including the utilities, insurance, taxes and such, that continues on."He hoped getting federal COVID-19 relief money through the county would lighten the burden. "The commissioners approved our grant for a little over $16,121," he said.He ultimately only got a small fraction of that amount -- $973. He said qualification restrictions were tightened, "and by the time it got down to me at the end of this thing they had weeded out almost every expense I had, except for a handful of utilities and I think that was about it."Despite the setback, Trial says it's the community that keeps him going. "The town's remarkable, I mean, we couldn't do it without them," he said. "If it hadn't been for them we wouldn't be here." Even in a pandemic, Trial said he's committed to preserving this piece of history. "It brings me a lot of pride to rebuild something… and turn it into something that supports the community and supports the people here," Trial said, "And in turn, they support us."KMBC 9 reached out to Platte County leaders to find out more about why Trial's business received less COVID-19 relief money than it was originally approved for. We received this statement from the Platte County Economic Development Council: "The Platte County (PC) CARES "Survive & Thrive" Small Business Grant was developed to utilize CARES Act funds to assist small businesses affected by COVID-19 within the Platte County communities. Mr. Trials’s PC CARES application was received on July7, 2020 for a requested amount of $16,758.00.For grant requests less than $25,000, the County Commission provisionally approved requested amounts as these awards were subject to final review by the PC CARES contracted staff. The final review checked the expenses for specific grant eligibility and supporting expense documents (receipts, etc.) required to complete the process. The provisional approval process was adopted to speed up the processing of applications due to COVID-19 and its immediate and devastating effect on small businesses.In Mr. Trial’s case, the County Commission’s provisional approval was for $16,122.00. Again, this was not a promise to pay such an amount but rather it was the grant award limit subject to reviewing the requested expenses. We regret if there was anymisunderstanding about the requirements of the processing related to the grant program. In the case of Mr. Trial’s application, the expenses requested for reimbursement were for utilities and overhead. Most of Mr. Trial’s request was for independent contractor payments ($13,824 of the total). Such contractor payments were not allowed underthe federal rules that the County was required to follow as part of the CARES Act. No other grant applicants were reimbursed for contractor payments. The allowable expenses presented by Mr. Trial included utilities in the total amount of $973.18. All the rulespertaining to the CARES grants were applied consistently to all applicants."