‘I’m over the moon’: New York’s small business owners rejoice as Mamdani cuts red tape

Red Scare? The democratic socialist mayor of New York City spent this week talking about red tape.

On Tuesday, Zohran Mamdani – the politician at the center of a revived rightwing panic about socialists and purported communists winning elections across America - posted a video on X of himself putting a sheet of paper with the phrase "RED TAPE" into a paper shredder. Other pieces of paper, with phrases like "cumbersome fees and fines" and "a permit you need just to serve ice-cream", were shredded too. The video, set to Wu Tang Clan's If Time Is Money, shows Mamdani joining a handful of city officials and small business owners throwing the resulting paper shreds into the air like confetti.

"New York's small business owners have said it over and over: endless paperwork and the uncertainty of dealing with City government has made getting their stores up and running too difficult," Mamdani wrote on X, announcing a package of 50 policy changes aimed at easing the financial burden of fines, fees and regulations on mom-and-pop shops across the five boroughs.

At a press conference in the Bronx, Mamdani listed some of the onerous policies getting the axe. Bodega owners will no longer need a separate license to sell the same products outside the store – like fruit and flowers – as inside. Restaurants will no longer need a "superfluous" frozen dessert permit to sell ice-cream on top of the permit already required to sell food. Barber shops will no longer have to renew their permit every year, instead doing so every three years. Street fair vendor permit fees will be reduced, restaurant inspections will be sped up, and equipment registration fees will be eliminated for a year.

A corresponding executive order signed by Mamdani on Monday will also expand the NYC Best program, assigning each of the city's 180,000 small businesses – which employ an estimated 1 million people – a case worker to help owners navigate the Big Apple's sometimes byzantine bureaucracy.

"I'm over the moon," Dawn Kelly, owner of Nourish Cafe in Jamaica, Queens, told the Guardian about the new reforms. She launched her business in 2016 with the help of Best. Her case worker, she said, "held my hand from the idea to cutting the ribbon", and she's thrilled more businesses will now have the opportunity to use the program.

Over the last decade, Kelly says her business has faced challenges. Her staff, for example, would have to travel from the outer-reaches of Queens all the way to the Upper West Side to take a three-day course to get a required food-handling certificate as the course is offered at only one location in the whole city. A member of the city's Small Business Advisory Commission, Kelly relayed this problem to the mayor's office. She says she got "emotional" this week watching Mamdani's press conference. Julie Su, deputy mayor for economic justice, called out Kelly by name when announcing that the city will now offer the food-handling course at multiple locations.

"These people are serious. They really care about small businesses," said Kelly, adding: "They get shite done."

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