Posts Tagged ‘Small Business Fines’

Too Little, Too Late for NYC Small Businesses

Saturday, July 4th, 2009
The View is Much Better From Afar

The View is Much Better From Afar

Crain’s New York Business reports that City Hall is taking steps to make doing business less painful for smaller businesses in New York City. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn is introducing legislation to waive penalties for small businesses with outstanding fines owed to certain, but not all, city agencies. She is also pursuing a measure that would require the City to assess the impact of any new regulations on small businesses prior to their adoption. This seems a small step given that in the past, small business owners have proved to the local newspapers that city inspectors smashed lights on their premises and then fined those businesses for not meeting lighting regulations. Presumably this was done to meet quota requirements for city inspectors. It was a shrewd calculus; the cost of appearing to protest such abuse exceeds the cost of paying the fine to make it go away. But it was a Pyrrhic victory for New York City government. The City has issued over $200 million in fines and penalties that it appears unable to collect. But more significantly, small businesses are fleeing the City and new start-ups don’t offset the attrition. Ms. Quinn has proposed convening a panel of legislators to review regulations, one by one, to find those that impede business operations while doing little or nothing to improve the quality of life in the City. I think that is a good first step, but it is too little, too late for New York City which has an extremely hostile small business climate. I suspect that this realization, that small businesses are good for the economy, was likely motivated by the troubles facing Wall Street. With Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch gone, and other institutions downsizing, who else will hire employees? If the City is really serious, it needs to move beyond the small potato, but extremely irritating issues, of fines and regulations and start looking at the tax structure.