Gotham Gazette

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small businesses

small businesses

  • Helping Our Small Businesses, Saving Our Retail Corridors, Improving Our Neighborhoods

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    (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    Ask any New Yorker and they will tell you how neighborhood streets that once bustled with small, mom-and-pop businesses now have a Duane Reade on one corner and a large bank on the other, with a row of empty stores in between. When I was growing up in Washington Heights, like a lot of New Yorkers, I could walk down the street to the local corner store where they knew my name and could even guess what I wanted before I started talking. That’s what made growing up in the city so special – the local institutions embedded

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  • Our Small Business Crisis is Very Real, and Demands City Action

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    (photo: @shootingbrooklyn)


    As a small business owner in New York City for 11 years, I believe it is imperative that city officials reframe the current debate over whether or not we face a small business crisis. In an August column for Gotham Gazette, Carol Kellermann used the results of a recently-published New York City Department of City Planning report on storefront

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  • The Small Business ‘Crisis’ That Isn’t

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    (photo: William Alatriste/City Council)


    When shops and restaurants that you love and depend on close it can be heartbreaking; I know from personal experience. My Upper West Side neighborhood has been seen as the epicenter of what some call a “small business crisis” in New York City, and we have certainly seen our share of lost community icons and long-shuttered storefronts, but a new report shows there is no citywide crisis and lawmakers should be very careful as they consider remedies to what problems do exist.

    Earlier this month

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  • As De Blasio Promises Paid Personal Time, Small Business Owners Push Back

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    (photo: Edwin J. Torres. Mayoral Photo Office)


    The City Council took steps Tuesday aimed at addressing what some have described as a crisis of small business closures across the city.

    Passing a package of bills that now head to Mayor Bill de Blasio for approval or veto, the Council is seeking to mandate more city outreach to small business and studies of business closures. The legislation does not, however, directly address concerns expressed by members of the business community about over-regulation.

    Under de Blasio and two

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  • Policymakers Can’t Have It Both Ways If They Want to Save Jobs

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    (photo: Emil Cohen/City Council)


    The number of jobs in New York City reached an all-time high this year, bringing the unemployment rate to record lows. We are the envy of the nation. But there is one key sector where jobs are declining. For the first time in more than a decade, we are seeing job losses among restaurants and food service establishments.

    In an attempt to halt some of these losses, City Council Members Brad Lander and Adrienne Adams introduced legislation to prohibit employers from firing fast food workers without just cause, meaning

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  • The Business Imbalance is Bad for the City

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    (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    The political imbalance in New York City between business and “anti-business” forces is becoming untenable.

    What is happening here has been in the works for many years and was not difficult to predict. Rising income inequality and the perception of a corrupt ruling class brought us the Tea Party movement, Occupy Wall Street, and the 2016 presidential candidacies of both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.

    As the nation gears up for the 2020 presidential race, rhetoric pitting “corporate

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  • Opposing Responses to Cashless Retail on Docket for City Council Hearing

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    Council Member Ritchie Torres (photo: Emil Cohen/City Council)


    The polarizing issue of local retailers going cashless has gotten the attention of New York City Council members, and on Thursday a Council committee will hear testimony on the topic and consider competing legislative proposals.

    The Committee on Consumer Affairs and Business Licensing, chaired by Council Member Rafael Espinal, a Brooklyn Democrat, will hear the bills for the first time. One, ...

  • Adapting to $15

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    Carmen Rodriguez, owner of Brooklyn Cupcake in Williamsburg, opens her store


    As the Minimum Wage Hits $15, New York City Business Owners Find Ways to Make It Work

    Colin Cento tells his food couriers to take on additional gigs from delivery services such as Uber Eats and Postmates, even as they work for him. Cento, who co-owns a chain of three fast-casual restaurants in Lower Manhattan called Poke Green, encourages them to supplement their income with the extra jobs because he pays them as contractors rather than staff employees and only

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  • The High Stakes of Shopping Hyper Local

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    (photo: @NYC_SBS)


    This holiday shopping season has been marked by the ninth annual Small Business Saturday, an initiative intended to encourage people to buy holiday gifts at small, independent brick-and-mortar shops instead of large chain outlets or online vendors. With the retail madness now in full swing, many small and independent businesses must wonder: can “shopping small” be an everyday experience rather than just an annual promotion?

    Small businesses are at the center of an emotional debate about the economic and cultural vibrancy of our neighborhoods. But do their

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  • The City is Helping Small Businesses Now More Than Ever

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    SBS Commissioner Bishop, the author, right (photo: @NYCCouncil)


    Earlier this week, an op-ed appeared in Gotham Gazette entitled "How the City Hurts Small Businesses." This column reminded me of a great saying by New York’s late U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan: “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” The truth is that Mayor Bill de Blasio and the New York City Department of Small Business Services are working every day

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  • How the City Hurts Small Businesses

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    Street vendors protest the city's cap on permits (photo: @VendorPower)


    Independent small businesses -- bodegas, pizza joints, shoe repair shops, fruit vendors -- are the heart and soul of New York City. But they are facing a crisis. Every day there is another story about some beloved neighborhood shop closing due to skyrocketing rents. Landlords then warehouse the vacant spaces in hopes of signing a lease with a bank or big chain. WNYC recently counted ...

  • The Holiday Season Opportunity to Bolster Our Local Businesses

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    Council Member Espinal, the author (middle), tours a local market


    The holidays are my favorite time of year: a time when we can open ourselves up to one another and reflect on what makes us grateful. Whether through wishing a stranger a happy holiday, participating in charity, or simply sharing traditions with friends and family, the holidays are a time for community.

    Yet, amid the joy and cheer that accompany the holiday season, the pressure to find perfect gifts for our loved ones while also balancing our checkbooks can be daunting. Especially when

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  • Proposed Zoning Changes Raise Questions About Small Businesses

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    Queens, 2009; photo by James and Karla Murray from Store Front II: A History Preserved

     


     

    As the mayor‘s recently proposed, and in many cases fiercely opposed, zoning text amendments have fanned the flames of New Yorkers‘ ever-simmering fear of gentrification, one type of at-risk tenant has gone unmentioned: small business owners.

    Whether it is the famous

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