By MARWA IKHMAYES
Early Thursday afternoon, small business owners gathered with taxi drivers, in solidarity with each other outside City Hall.
They demanded that there be regulations over commercial rent increases and debt relief for Medallion yellow cab drivers.
The United for Small Business NYC Coalition (USBnyc) represents small business owners and non-residential tenants. They want to work with the City Council to get limits on commercial rent increases, because they sometimes experience doubling or tripling of their rents.
Due to unregulated rent increases for commercial properties, vacancies have doubled across the city over a ten-year period, from 2007- 2017, according to USBnyc. USBnyc is working hard to get City Councilmembers to sign off on legislation regulating commercial rent increases.
“Today, we have almost . . . the majority (of the City Council) signing” off (on) the legislation. We’ve doubled the sponsors in the last month,” said Guy Edwab, a leader of the United for Small Business coalition.
The legislation was proposed in 2019, but the process was slowed down during the pandemic. “Similar ideas have been around since the 1980s, the idea of protecting a business from increases . . . and I think we have a real chance to do something this year,” said Edwab.
Small business owners have been struggling with rent payments, especially since the beginning of April last year, when businesses were forced to shut down because of the pandemic, leaving many owners unable to pay mortgages and other bills.
Charlotta Jason, the owner of Chez Oskar, located in Fort Greene, stood on the front lines on Thursday, asking for “checks and balances” on landlords. Jason was forced to relocate her restaurant due to a rent increase.
“It was really hard,” she said. “You build your business over time. It needs at least ten years, if not more, to build something just so the landlord can kick you out… If you move your restaurant from one point to another, there’s no guarantee that you’re going to be able to generate the same kind of business.”
She added, “They [the City Council] have to realize we have to work together to sign good legislation that is fair.”
While USBnyc demanded regulations on commercial rent increases, the NY Taxi Alliance stood there on Thursday to fight for debt relief for medallion yellow cab owner/drivers. The yellow cab industry has faced significant challenges, especially recently against competitors Uber and Lyft. The NY Taxi Alliance says the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) is much stricter in dealing with yellow cab driver/owners than with Uber and Lyft, with Uber and Lyft doing the same work with fewer regulations.
Medallion cabs once promised owner/drivers an opportunity to build a life by purchasing a certificate to own the yellow cab. But things went downhill, with lenders taking advantage of the owners, and then with other services, like the relatively unregulated Uber and Lyft, competing with the 10,000 medallion drivers.
Between 2011 and 2019, yellow cab revenues dropped by over forty-four percent, the NY Taxi Alliance says.
Kaper Bassad had participated in a hunger strike with other taxi drivers, trying to get their voices heard for debt forgiveness. On Thursday he said, “My dad (a cab driver) passed away from the anxiety of losing everything. A Medallion is not as valuable as it was before.”
The NY Taxi Alliance promises to build a stable financial environment for taxi drivers, so they can afford to pay loans they took out to purchase their vehicles and live decent lives.
“We are asking the city to keep their promise that they made when we invested in the city,” said Bassad. “We’re asking them to do the right thing.”