Small businesses are facing enormous problems in their fight to survive. It seems to me that the biggest problem that they face, one that each storeowner that we read about mentioned, is the rising rents. This is a major problem in today’s economy and market. If the rents keep rising, storeowners are forced to sell their businesses to people who can pay those rent prices but then went the rent goes up again, that owner cannot afford to keep his shop open in that location and has to sell to someone else until it happens again. It’s an ongoing circle that will continue until a big business who can afford the higher rents buy up properties and storefronts in a neighborhood comes in, thus leading to gentrification through down-up development and also leads to big businesses monopolies since small mom-and-pop stores may not be around and the big retail stores may be the only places to go to for the things you need.
I think that the Small Business Jobs Survival Act taken on by the organization Take Back NYC is a good start to fighting against the problems faced by local shop owners. It attempts to tackle the need for fair negotiations in commercial lease renewal between landlords and shop owners. For starters, there would be a ten year minimum on lease renewals. The landlord and tenant have 90 days to negotiate the terms and conditions on the new lease and if one party still does not agree to the new terms, a mediator or arbitrator is brought in to settle the dispute, hopefully without any biases toward landlord or tenant and he shall decide the rent price. This act seems pretty fair to me and I hope that this bill will pass so that tenants, shop owners, and landlords as well, can obtain the rights they need to fair prices and negotiations and that there can be less ill will between them.
As for 3 questions that I have for store owners:
1. Who are your customers? People from the neighborhood your store is in or perhaps people from other neighborhoods? People from the same community or ethnicity perhaps? It would be interesting to see how the storeowner would classify his customers.
2. Has rising rent prices affected your business? If so, what have you done to try to combat them and help your business stay afloat?
3. Are you aware of or do you take part in any organizations that try to help small shop owners maintain their businesses such as the ones mentioned in the articles we read? Do you think these organizations can have an impact on the problems your shop is facing today?
Good, practical questions, Amy! Do you think there are any problems with the proposed law, though?