PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Andrew Rigie, Executive Director of New York City Hospitality Alliance
2:15:24
ยท
171 sec
Andrew Rigie, representing the New York City Hospitality Alliance, presented six key points to improve conditions for small businesses, particularly in the hospitality industry. He emphasized the need for community board and 311 reforms, scaffolding regulations, labor law compliance support, outdoor dining improvements, fine reductions, and tax repeals.
- Rigie called for streamlining community board processes and implementing penalties for bogus 311 complaints.
- He suggested providing complimentary labor law consultations to help small businesses navigate complex regulations.
- Rigie advocated for reducing fines by implementing warning or cure periods for non-hazardous violations.
- He proposed repealing the commercial rent tax and a NYC-specific liquor license tax to alleviate financial burdens on small businesses.
Andrew Rigie
2:15:24
Alright.
2:15:25
I'll be fast on on the clock.
2:15:26
I Andrew Riggi, New York City Hospitality Alliance.
2:15:29
We represent restaurants, bars, and nightclubs.
2:15:31
First thing I'd say, thank you.
2:15:33
You've been a huge advocate of small businesses.
2:15:35
I'd say one thing is the city needs to send a message.
2:15:37
When there's joint committee hearings, getting business owners here, like, we want council members to be able to hear this.
2:15:43
So we hope you take everything back to your colleagues and really push.
2:15:47
I'm gonna hit 6 points, and my colleagues are gonna, put, you know, get into detail.
2:15:53
Community board and three one one reforms.
2:15:55
Community boards that I'm on want have become too bureaucratic.
2:15:58
There's different applications.
2:15:59
It creates a lot of different challenges for small businesses.
2:16:02
3 one one reforms, a lot of bogus complaints that could result in violations.
2:16:07
People making bogus, complaints should have penalties.
2:16:11
The scaffolding, I know the council's been working on these bills.
2:16:14
I'm not sure exactly where they are, but when scaffolding goes up, small business revenue goes down.
2:16:19
Get these bills passed.
2:16:20
There can also be more reform.
2:16:22
Labor law compliance.
2:16:23
Before the commissioner was talking about the commercial lease review support they provide, there's lots of labor laws, huge liability, very complex.
2:16:32
Labor lawyers are very expensive, provide complimentary labor law consultations for small businesses to comply with all the changing laws, which is a huge headache, huge problem.
2:16:43
My colleague, Rob Bookman, is an expert in outdoor dining.
2:16:46
He's going to present 6 different reforms for the new outdoor dining program, making it better, more inclusive, and build on the good aspects of the new program compared to the pre pandemic sidewalk cafe law.
2:16:58
We're talking about reducing fines.
2:17:00
Easy.
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We don't need all the data.
2:17:02
It's good to see.
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But every single violation that does not provide, or present an immediate hazard to the public or to workers should allow for a warning or a cure period.
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It's very simple.
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You could significantly reduce them.
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When it comes to other things like taxes, repeal the commercial rent tax.
2:17:21
I have information in the testimony.
2:17:23
There's also this New York City only liquor license tax.
2:17:26
It was repealed for a portion of the pandemic.
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It's a couple $100 a year, but it's a couple $100 a year.
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It helps small businesses permanently repeal that, streamline permitting and licensing so businesses can get open and expand faster.
2:17:40
And then my colleague, Max, is going to talk about fixing Oath's broken remote hearing system.
2:17:46
So, whew, those 6 stuff.
2:17:48
I got seconds won.
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Now I'd say I think it would be great to be able to get a lot of small business owners and talk about different solutions.
2:17:55
You know, we know what the problems are, and these 6 things or 7 items that I present in my testimony, that's things we know will work, we know will make changes.
2:18:05
They're things that have been developed over years years of seeing the problems.
2:18:09
So, we just need them to be turned into bills and get them passed, and, thank you.