City Council passes bill aimed at helping small businesses

The Metropolis Council handed a invoice on Thursday aimed toward shrinking the Huge Apple’s “bureaucratic maze” of laws required to open and function a enterprise.

The laws, sponsored by Metropolis Councilwoman Julie Menin (D-Higher East Facet), handed unanimously within the council. If signed into regulation by Mayor Eric Adams, the invoice might streamline town’s tangled course of small companies undergo to attain the correct permits and licenses.

“Companies say New York Metropolis authorities stands in the best way of them with the ability to successfully function their enterprise by making a bureaucratic maze of crimson tape,” stated Menin, previously a restaurant proprietor.

The invoice would create a web-based “One Cease Store” portal permitting companies to submit info on one website as a substitute of now having to coordinate by way of a number of completely different businesses. The platform would additionally permit them to examine the standing of purposes and approvals in a single place.

A person walks past a "now open" sign on a coffee shop window in Chelsea on Jan. 19, 2022 in New York City.
The town’s Small Enterprise Companies must create the brand new system by November 2023 whether it is accredited by Mayor Eric Adams.
Getty Photos

Proper now, there are over 5,000 guidelines and laws and 200 business-related licenses and permits that metropolis companies – relying on the kind of career – should examine off so as to be in compliance with the regulation.

For instance, so as to open a barber store the applicant has to undergo 56 completely different steps involving 12 completely different in-person interactions previous to approval.

Andrew Rigie, the chief director of the NYC Hospitality Alliance, stated regulatory reform is badly wanted.

Executive Director of New York City hospitality Alliance Andrew Rigie speaks during Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer presser on restaurant plight during pandemic at Dirt Candy restaurant.
Andrew Rigie says reform of the laws required to open and function a enterprise is critical.
Pacific Press/LightRocket through Getty Photos

“Operating a restaurant in NYC requires small enterprise house owners to navigate an enormous forms, an alphabet soup of separate regulatory businesses equivalent to DOH, DOB, DEP, FDNY and DCWP, every with their very own permits, necessities, and methods,” he stated in an announcement.

“This overly advanced regulatory maze creates confusion and crimson tape that leads to delays and uncertainty costing time, cash and complications for small enterprise house owners.”

Menin stated the lengthy course of also needs to be shortened as a result of it additional hinders entrepreneurs struggling to get well from the devastating COVID-19 pandemic.

“We haven’t accomplished almost sufficient to help our small companies and but they're the spine of our metropolis – it’s so dysfunctional and we surprise why one third of our metropolis’s small companies have closed throughout the pandemic! We realized in COVID that just about any interplay might be performed on-line,” she stated.

If accredited by Adams, town’s Small Enterprise Companies can be required to create the brand new system by November 2023.

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