Six Democratic candidates for the Greenwich Village and Chelsea Assembly seat at a recent forum laid out measures to help small businesses, often citing relief by cutting through a jungle of red tape.<\/p>\n
The group spoke at a 66th Assembly District small business panel on May 14 organized by the Greenwich Village Chelsea Chamber of Commerce<\/a>, sponsored by Con Edison, to an audience of around 75 at the Greenwich House Music School.\u00a0<\/p>\n Furhan Amad, Corinne Arnold, Ryder Kessler, Jeannine Kiely, David Siffert and Ben Yee are vying to succeed Deborah Glick<\/a>, who has held the seat for around 35 years and endorsed Kiely.<\/p>\n Ahmad has worked as a police officer, firefighter and EMT; Arnold started E-Z Election Solutions and leads her own co-op Board; Kessler is co-executive director of Abundance New York, advocating for housing and improved public transit.<\/p>\n Kiely is the Democratic district leader, former chair of Community Board 2 who co-founded the Literacy Academy Collective and Friends of Elizabeth Street Garden.<\/p>\n Siffert is a civil rights lawyer, NYU law professor and head of the NYU\u2019s State Government Initiative, and Yee works at an education technology startup and represents Lower Manhattan on the Democratic State Committee<\/p>\n Candidates targeted red tape, described strategies to lower commercial rent, provide incentives for long-term leases to local companies, ease taxes on downtown businesses, impose penalties for long-term vacancies and hold down insurance costs.<\/p>\n Reduce regulations<\/p>\n Greenwich Village Chelsea Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Jesse Gericke pointed to the Mamdani administration\u2019s<\/a> initiative to reduce red tape, noting proliferating permits needed to open leading to months of delays.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s too complex. It\u2019s unnecessary,\u201d Gericke said. \u201cIt\u2019s old rules being asked to be followed. The amount has to be reduced.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Manhattan Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Jessica Walker said government too often seeks to tax not assist small business.\n<\/p>\n \u201cWe have been regulating them, taxing them and litigating them as though they were a luxury,\u201d Walker said. \u201cThe businesses here are the reason anyone walks down these streets in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n While the state takes measures to \u201cbuild, baby, build,\u201d candidates called for the state to ease regulations to help small businesses.\n<\/p>\n \u201cWhy is it so hard to start a small business?\u201d Ahmad asked. \u201cWe should be helping small businesses so big businesses don\u2019t come in and replace them.\u201d<\/p>\n Arnold said red tape costs time and money and \u201cwe need to streamline it and make it easier,\u201d noting once regulations are \u201cmore under control\u201d that \u201cthe cost of running a business will go down.\u201d<\/p>\n Yee said state regulatory approvals can delay small-business openings by months, when they should take days.\n<\/p>\n Kiely called for using technology to cut red tape as well as more automatic applications for things like Medicaid and SNAP.\n<\/p>\n \u201cI think that\u2019s a tech issue as well as a desire at the state level,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s so much bureaucracy.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Arnold said Local Law 11, regarding scaffoldin<\/a>g, is creating a long, costly limbo and congestion pricing<\/a> is impacting workers and customers, not just motorists.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think we have to look at what congestion pricing is doing to our businesses,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have to figure out how to thread the needle.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of times we think about the wage side, but we don\u2019t think about the cost side,\u201d Kessler said, noting red tape, housing, utilities, taxes and healthcare boost costs. \u201cThere\u2019s so much we can do to tackle costs.\u201d<\/p>\n Rent<\/p>\n Caroline Weaver, moderator and owner of The Locavore Variety Store, said \u201cgetting a lease is one thing, keeping it is another\u201d as landlords (themselves business owners) often \u201cwait for big fish.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe must be able to protect commercial tenants that have done the right thing,\u201d said Ahmad, calling for a variation on a Good Eviction law for business. \u201cTheir leases should be renewed. Or they should have a process where their history is reviewed and their lease isn\u2019t abruptly ended.\u201d<\/p>\n Kiely favors a form of Good Cause Eviction legislation as well as standard business leases, while saying businesses shouldn\u2019t be rewarded for long vacant storefronts.<\/p>\n \u201cOwners with lots of property take write offs against revenue-generating property by keeping something vacant,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n Arnold said it\u2019s possible to incentivize landlords for giving long-term leases to local businesses.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to make sure we are balancing the interests,\u201d Yee said. \u201cIt\u2019s important that commercial tenants have a reliable lease and know they\u2019ll be operating into the future.\u201d<\/p>\n Kessler questioned an \u201cappetite in Albany for commercial rent control,\u201d but said measures could be taken to improve commercial rents.\n<\/p>\n Kiely called for eliminating a commercial rent tax south of 96th Street on small businesses as a quick, direct way to help.<\/p>\n Kessler said \u201cinsurance rates are skyrocketing\u201d as insurers insist on work done, or revoke policies, while Arnold said \u201cwe can fix insurance partially on the state level,\u201d through legislation.\u00a0<\/p>\n Arnold said New York also needs \u201chealth insurance for everyone,\u201d noting the biggest risk of starting a business \u201cis managing healthcare cost.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Ahmad called for more support for artists, who he called \u201ca vital resource\u201d who could be helped by incentivizing artist spaces.\n<\/p>\n Retrain<\/p>\n Many described AI as a serious threat and tool for small business, while Kiely called for more investment in CUNY, SUNY, trades and apprenticeships.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think we should allow AI to create massive winners and massive losers,\u201d Arnold said. \u201cWe need to strike a balance.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Yee said \u201cwe need job retraining\u201d and \u201cto make sure people are up to date to use artificial intelligence\u201d and incentives to hire those who lose jobs due to AI.<\/p>\n Ahmad also called for more worker training, especially as AI modifies or eliminates entry-level jobs.\n<\/p>\n And Yee said \u201cthe state should have a forward ai thinking policy\u201d to bring jobs benefiting from the AI boom, such as biotech.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n Arnold said \u201cwe need a lot more attention to programs that already exist,\u201d noting business owners need to know about existing help.\n<\/p>\n \u201cThe legislators who actually move the needle for small business are almost never the loudest on election nights,\u201d Walker said of legislators\u2019 role. \u201cThey read the legislation, find one line and fix it before anyone even notices.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Six Democratic candidates for the Greenwich Village and Chelsea Assembly seat at a recent forum laid out measures…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[72466,92088,4921,2519,9,24,55,54,56,92089],"class_list":["post-235018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-66th-assembly-district","tag-candidates-for-assembly-district-66","tag-chelsea","tag-greenwich-village","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-small-businesses-in-manhattan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}