Small Business Committee Chair Council Member Robert Cornegy with a City Council attorney and Council Member Donovan Richards (Photos by Sabina Mollot)
Suggestions include restrictions on chain stores, penalties for long vacancies of storefronts
By Sabina Mollot
The ongoing saga of New York City’s mom-and-pops facing extinction was the topic du jour at the City Council chambers on Friday, when a hearing was devoted to possible solutions. There were suggestions from Council members on ideas like restricting the ability of chains from opening (though this was shot down by city planners) and discussion on how to get businesses to open in neighborhoods that are currently underserved.
At the hearing, which was co-chaired by Small Business Committee Chair Robert Cornegy and Zoning and Franchise Sub-Committee Chair Council Member Donovan Richards, the Council members brought up “high rent blight,” a term coined by Columbia Professor Tim Wu to describe the warehousing of retail spaces by speculative landlords that’s led to many storefronts remaining empty for long periods.
“As Frank Sinatra once said, ‘If you make it here you can make it anywhere,’” said Cornegy, “but it seems that now real estate is so hot that even businesses who’ve made it (are closing). People have less and less interaction with bank tellers and we have banks on every block. We have commercial corridors with artificially inflated prices.”
