WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES DECEMBER 10, 2020 13
With small businesses on the brink, City Council must act now
BY BRENT O’LEARY
Small businesses are at the
heart of every community
— they’re the well-known
and well-loved cornerstones
that bring neighbors together
and persist throughout time.
Our city would not be the
special place it is without its
independent restaurants,
bakeries and shops.
Even before COVID-19 swept
our city, forcing businesses to
juggle indefi nite closure with
the world-changing eff ects of
a pandemic, our small businesses
faced a crisis. Predatory
landlords looking for large
windfalls put decades-old
mom-and-pops and new startups
alike at risk of closure
with rapid and extreme rent
increases all over the city. In
these conditions, businesses
were already just scraping by.
As we head into the holiday
season nearly nine months
into this pandemic, our small
businesses are now teetering
on the very edge of survival.
“Since COVID, we have
been working double as hard
for half the revenue,” said Eric
Barthel, owner of Cooldown
Juice. “We went from comfortable
to deciding which bills
to pay. We are trying to stay
afl oat.”
He and his shop are not
alone. Countless businesses
across the city and the country
have seen the revenue they
used to count on completely
vanish, and are struggling to
recover.
We can’t aff ord to lose our
small businesses, which means
we can’t aff ord to do nothing.
If we do, more than just the
businesses themselves are in
danger; their employees, their
employees’ families and our
city’s entire economy and tax
base are, too, with a potential
for a ripple eff ect throughout
our communities, families and
economies.
Businesses shutting down
and people staying home
saved lives. Now, we need a
plan to save our businesses.
A strong plan, at minimum,
should include cash grants for
those businesses that were
forced to close and tax abatements
to reduce costs in the
long term.
Critically, rent must be canceled
for small businesses; any
unpaid rent for the months
they were closed or reopening
should never come due.
If businesses can’t pay their
rent, they won’t be able to survive.
Landlords haven’t been
a source of support, despite
the fact that not being able to
pay rent is the fault of the pandemic,
not of the businesses
themselves.
“The most diffi cult part has
been the lack of support by
landlords. Being restricted
to 25 percent capacity is hard
enough. And we’ve been very
serious about keeping our
clientele safe. Lots of money
invested in protocols,” said
Corey Lange, co-owner of
Solid State Bar. And yet there
is “zero help from landlords,”
OP-ED
Lange added. “It’s frustrating.
Especially because we’re in it
together. If I fail, we both fail.”
We can’t aff ord to leave businesses
without support as they
face the possibility of shutting
their doors forever. We have
to take action to provide rent
relief and other fi nancial support
now.
Most importantly, we need
to give our businesses the stability
they have been deprived
of for years, and the best way
to do that is to guarantee every
small business 10-year leases
with the ability to renew. This
will help them get back on
their feet, since longer terms
and guaranteed renewal
would newly give them access
to fi nancing that could make
all the diff erence in their recovery
from COVID-19.
All of these steps are possible,
and the City Council has
the power to get much of this
done right now. The Small
Business Jobs Survival Act
contains many of these provisions
and could give small
businesses the tools they need
to survive. But, this critical
solution has been sitting in
the Council for years without
being put up for a vote, even
with the support of 29 City
Council members.
Shuttered businesses cannot
alone be expected to pay the
price of shutdowns. Leaving
them without support at this
moment risks causing signifi -
cant damage to communities
in the wake of mass closures.
We all, including landlords
and government leaders, need
to work together to share the
burden of saving our small
business community from
permanent decimation before
it’s too late.
The most important action
that can be taken today would
be passing the SBSJA. The
speaker should put it up for a
vote now.
Brent O’Leary is an attorney,
community leader, and candidate
for City Council in District
26, which covers Long Island
City, Sunnyside, Woodside and
parts of Astoria.
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