On Sunday, we asked readers to share their “Save Our City” thoughts. The owner of the Douglaston Deli in Queens answered our call with an e-mail describing the real problems that hit business owners like him hard.
“The state and city governments have totally failed us, whether it’s the outrageously high minimum wage or the nonstop oversight from government agencies [that] like to impose new rules and regulations on what seems like a daily basis,” Matthew Walters writes.
Jessica Walker, president of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, has one idea for a solution: require City Council legislation to include economic-impact statements, revealing a proposed new law’s cost to the businesses it hits. Asking small-business owners how they’ll be affected would be a good practice, too.
Deli owner Walters cites the bureaucratic hell owners face to get licenses from the city, its high taxes and a recent spike in “shoplifting” — thanks, perhaps, to bail reform.
“Every year, we have to pay $280 for our food license. Every three years, we pay $360 for our liquor license,” he writes. And it’s getting worse: A new fee, for the city to manage paid family leave, “costs us almost $500 a year as it is based on employees. The more employees you have, the more you pay. Another job-killing mandate.”
Oh, and after the $15 minimum wage took effect, all his vendors wrote to say they were raising their prices to cover the extra labor costs.
He also warns against renewing licenses by mail: “The last time we renewed our food license, I sent the renewal through the mail with the check and all the paperwork. They said they never got it. We ended up getting a fine and had to do it in person.”
That fine alone, “including a 2 percent fee they charge when using a debit card online,” was $115. And that same day, “we got hit with a sanitation fine for putting our garbage out too early,” for about $125.
Rubbing salt in the wound: “Instead of a warning they just slapped a fine on our door. Didn’t even bother walking it into the store to tell us.”
A de Blasio administration report notes the importance of small businesses: “Of the approximately 220,000 businesses located in the city, 98 percent are small (fewer than 100 employees), and 89 percent are very small (fewer than 20 employees).” These businesses employ “nearly half” of Gotham’s workforce, and they tend to grow far faster than larger ones.
“Given the importance of small businesses to our economy,” the report notes, it’s “critical” to “create an environment where it is easy for small businesses to open, operate and grow.” Walters would surely agree — and beg Team de Blasio to heed its own words.
Dealing with city bureaucrats is near-impossible, adds Walters: “It’s very difficult to get straight answers.” The city is constantly changing its rules, and it requires new licenses and other documents periodically. Completing much of the paperwork, he said, is “harder than trying to get a mortgage.” Fixing a recent problem with his liquor license cost a whole day at the agency, and “God forbid you forget a document and have to make a return trip!”
As for the minimum wage, he notes that if you add up all the time he and his partner put in, they themselves probably don’t make $15 an hour — but now they must pay a 20-year-old student that much, though he lives with parents who pay most of his expenses.
That wage hike, by the way, has led the deli to slice workers’ hours — which the owners make up by putting in more time themselves.
What’s next?
Tom Grech, president of the Queens Chamber of Commerce, suggests lawmakers themselves be forced to spend time working at small businesses before taking office to get a sense of what owners face.
Matthew Walters insists that, no matter what the city does, “us small mom-and-pop business owners will continue serving you with a smile.”
But if Mayor de Blasio is really concerned with “fairness,” adds Grech, the least he can do is talk to the owners.