Tuesday night, I spotted a last-minute post advertising a roundtable for current and aspiring small business owners with my local City Council Member. As a small business owner who’s never had an opportunity to interact with Rita C. Joseph, I hurried to finish up and get there in professional dress.
The event was hosted at Flatbush Central Market, home to the Caribbean American Chamber of Commerce. Executive Director Marijo Montrose briefly introduced many of the ways the organization works to support local businesses. It’s a topic I’d like to explore further in a future story, but, in the meantime, Ark Republic published an excellent overview a few years ago.
Small Business Services (SBS) isn’t offering kitchen space or printers like Flatbush Central, but the Senior Community Liaison did present more than a dozen slides to cover programs available to New York City small business owners. A few I hadn’t seen in previous virtual presentations included:
- Future Fund, revenue-based loans
- BEST, permit, license, and pre-inspection assistance
- Workforce1, career centers connecting employers and job seekers
One unexpectedly practical touch was that SBS staff distributed printed copies of the presentation slides instead of promising to email them later. Attendees had already received folders with the agenda, a page for notes, and a few of the handouts from the welcome tables.
In the transition from slides to an open discussion, Joseph, who represents Flatbush and some surrounding neighborhoods in Brooklyn, and City Council Member Shanel Henry-Thomas of Queens, who chairs the Committee on Small Business, shared stories of their connection to small businesses and motivations for wanting to help everyone in attendance grow. The way they built on each other’s comments felt warmer and more candid than virtual events I’ve attended.
Henry-Thomas emphasized how her district alone is in charge of multiple major projects from constructing a soccer stadium to creating Metropolitan Park casino, like these projects represent more opportunities for our businesses to profit, not just reasons to respect how hard City Council is working.
When the floor opened to questions, many rules that feel outdated and unfair were brought up. One man talked about permits for awnings and how unfair it is to be a corner location. Why should one store have to pay twice as much to identify their location?
SBS pointed to new City initiatives. Executive Order 11 should reduce fees and civil penalties, according to a press release. The order was signed January 14 this year and will take a year to identify needed changes with benchmarks at 60, 90, and 180 days after January 14. The promise is to make owning a business in the city more affordable.
Then the idea came up that successful businesses make the whole neighborhood better, but that also means the rent goes up. The City doesn’t want business owners to shy away from purchasing space, was the answer. There are multiple programs to secure financing.
One woman wanted to know what was being done about all the vacant storefronts. This led to anecdotes from the City Council members and SBS about business owners who simply want to retire but then local residents take a closing sign the wrong way and protest how unfair it is that the shop is going under. Meanwhile, the owner will keep saying he just wants to retire.
Back on the topic of unfair penalties, SBS will teach new shop owners how to avoid fines for 100-year-old laws. Both Council members acknowledged attendees’ frustrations with sanitation enforcement, particularly complaints about sidewalk-cleaning requirements. Joseph said her phone does not have as many pictures of her family as it does of trash for complaints she’s forwarding to DSNY when they should be responsible rather than her constituents.
When the city representatives circled back to the amount of big projects—three casinos, two airports, a soccer stadium—the emphasis was to be sure you’re in the PASSPort system. A certain number of contracts are supposed to go to certified Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprise (M/WBE) businesses and, if you have the right codes on your profile, you can secure the city contract. One barbershop wasn’t sure it was worth it to be certified M/WBE until the Administration for Children’s Services needed a local barbershop. They won that contract.
There is a fair for small business resources and M/WBE certification at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, July 7 at the Central Library, but virtual sessions and more solutions can also be found at https://www.nyc.gov/site/sbs/index.page
888-SBS-4NYC
nyc.gov/sbs
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