Wiley plans boosts for small biz

The city would create a yearlong “regulatory holiday” for small businesses aimed at saving them $100 million in fees, under a new plan from mayoral candidate Maya Wiley.

As part of her platform for struggling mom-and-pops, she’d waive the city’s tax on liquor licenses, along with fees from the Health and Consumer Affairs departments. Wiley would also provide relief for water and sewer fees. Those measures would last for all of 2022.

The candidate, a former top legal aide to Mayor de Blasio, would also make sure health inspections are scheduled in advance, instead of coming unannounced, but would boost the number of inspections.

“For too long, New York City small businesses have been struggling to get by and this plan not only will give them the relief they need, but will help put them on a pathway to recovery,” Wiley said in a Thursday statement.

As many as a third of the city’s small businesses may close by the end of the pandemic, the pro-business Partnership for New York City predicted last year. More than half a million jobs were lost in 2020.

Along with providing various forms of relief to small businesses, Wiley proposed a $30 million program to send grants to shops in the city’s hardest-hit communities.

She said she’d tap federal funding for the effort. Her proposals also include coops aimed at promoting local ownership.

“We know what small businesses need — affordable rents, to be freed from fines and for red tape to be cut, and this plan does just that,” Wiley stated.

On rent, she called for commercial rent stabilization, though she did not immediately provide details. Efforts to limit how much landlords can raise rent on commercial tenants have stalled in the City Council for years.

Jobs and small businesses have emerged as a key theme among the large group of mayoral candidates ahead of the June 22 Democratic primary. Entrepreneur Andrew Yang wants to appoint a “small business czar,” while Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams proposed sales tax exemptions for small businesses every Tuesday, among other steps.