You are reading

Small Business Owners in Queens Rally for More Support from Legislators Amid COVID-19 Restrictions

Local business owners came together on the steps of City Hall Wednesday to rally for more financial help (Courtesy of Queens Together)

July 30, 2020 By Allie Griffin

A group of small business owners from across the borough came together on the steps of Queens Borough Hall Wednesday to demand more financial help from legislators as they try to keep their businesses afloat amid the pandemic.

The mom-and-pop shop owners are struggling to pay their rent from being shuttered during the worst of COVID-19. Many are in need of immediate financial relief–with their bills continuing to pile up.

The store owners are calling for help from legislators as they try to survive while conforming with the state’s COVID-19 safety requirements. They also warn that if they go out of business, many local people will also lose their jobs.

“Help me,” Katch Astoria co-owner Roseann McSorley said, appealing directly to Governor Andrew Cuomo. “We aren’t struggling only with our store rents, we are also struggling with our own home rents and costs of raising our families.”

Council Member Donovan Richards — the all but confirmed Democratic nominee for Queens Borough President — also spoke at the rally.

He said local business owners deserve grants from the government. They don’t want loans from the government, he said, that will put them in more debt.

“We want grants for our small businesses to stay open,” Richards said. “We don’t want them drowning in debt for the next 30 or 40 years.”

The Wednesday rally was organized by the small business advocacy group Queens Together, which sprung up at the height of the pandemic in New York City.

Jaime-Faye Bean, co-founder of Queens Together, said the city and state’s relief efforts have not reached most mom-and-pops in the borough.

The group is advocating for immediate commercial rent relief as well as disaster grants and loans.

Queens Together also wants a permanent cap on third-party app delivery fees, such as Seamless and Grubhub that hurt small restaurants. The current cap is only on a temporary basis.

Several businesses in Queens — both new and long-standing — have already shut their doors permanently due to the financial burden of the coronavirus pandemic.

McSorley, the owner of Katch Astoria, urged the state to provide more help so that more do not close.

“Kill the virus, not the businesses in Queens,” she said.

email the author: news@queenspost.com

One Comment

Click for Comments 
Sara Ross

This city was built by immigrants who came through Ellis Island (which was no easy task to be allowed in) who started small businesses. There were no big box stores, no malls, no big corporation stores. The elected should fight for the small business owners and not just when they’re running for office. Macy’s started as a small dry goods store, not the “World’s Largest Department Store”.

Reply

Leave a Comment
Reply to this Comment

All comments are subject to moderation before being posted.


The reCAPTCHA verification period has expired. Please reload the page.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Recent News

Dead body of adult woman pulled from the freezing waters off Rockaway Park Friday morning: NYPD

First responders pulled the body of a woman from the frigid waters off Rockaway Park on Friday morning, and investigators are working to determine how she died.

Police from the 100th Precinct in Rockaway Beach responded to a 911 call at 8:44 a.m. reporting a person in the Atlantic Ocean in the vicinity of Beach 109th Street and Shore Front Parkway, where the body of an adult woman was recovered from the surf, unconscious and unresponsive.