ALEXANDRIA, Va. (WDVM) — Mayor Justin Wilson is calling on Dominion Energy to step up their service, after months of power outages in the city.

In a letter, Wilson expressed residents’ concerns surrounding the “recent reliability of electricity service”.

Wilson asked the energy provider to honor three commitments: 1) implementing a multi-year infrastructure investment plan; 2) improved transparency regarding performance and 3) an enhanced service level commitment for customer requests.

The power outages have affected many small businesses and restaurants in Alexandria, one of them being Pork Barrel BBQ in the Del Ray neighborhood.

Mike Anderson, CEO of Home Grown Restaurant Group, says the outages are causing financial concerns.

“We’re a little frustrated because when we have a power outage here, it really affects business,” said Anderson.

In a statement to WDVM, Dominion Energy commented on the outages, saying, “We understand how critical reliable energy is for our customers. We take these concerns seriously and work to continually improve our service.”

However, Anderson is hoping Dominion can fix the problem sooner rather than later, as the outages are compounding the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the service industry.

“At all the restaurants, business is down big time. We’re all struggling, and for us to lose a day of business is pretty critical for us at this time,” he said.

Anderson said the power will sometimes go off between 5-7 p.m., prime time for his restaurant. If the power goes out, so do the hoods used in the kitchen to cook — and the smoke has no where to go.

“That smoke then sets off the alarm, fire department has to come and shut the alarm off,” he said.

In 2020 alone, Alexandria experienced 16 large-scale power outages. Hoping for a brighter future, Wilson said he looks forward to working with Dominion to improve power services in the coming months.