How to Help Small Businesses, Hurt Mamdani All at Once
Miles Pollard / Nicole Huyer /
Zohran Mamdani, the new mayor of New York City, wants affordability and equity through big-government intervention. His platform includes city-owned grocery stores, rent freezes, a $30 minimum wage, free buses, universal child care, and small-business reforms focused on improving compliance.
Mamdani, a self-proclaimed socialist, has a threefold plan: “cut fines and fees for small businesses in half; speed up permitting and make online applications easier; [and] increase funding for 1:1 small business support by 500%.”
While assisting small-business owners in navigating bureaucracy and making it more affordable to operate are bipartisan objectives, Mamdani’s solutions are not as commendable as they may appear.
New York’s small?business problem is not just the cost of compliance; it’s the 6,000 rules and roughly 250 business?related licenses and permits that owners must navigate to open and operate. Rather than simply waiving fees, reducing the sheer volume of these 6,000 rules would reduce confusion, unnecessary agency touchpoints, and delays for enterprising businesses.
For example, in an act of overzealous climate-phobia, NYC tried to ban cooking with coal to the detriment of the famous brick-oven, coal-fired pizzerias that dot New York’s storied landscape.
Small businesses (employing fewer than 50 workers) dominate New York’s private economy. NYCEDC estimates that small businesses account for roughly 94% of all private firms, provide income to approximately 1 million New Yorkers, and generate $250 billion in economic impact.
If Mamdani’s goal is to make it faster, easier, and cheaper to run a neighborhood shop, reforms must reduce onerous interactions between entrepreneurs and city officials.
Before embracing more bureaucracy, specifically Mamdani’s Mom & Pop Czar office or larger help desks, it is worth acknowledging what already exists. Since 2022, New York has run an “education?first” enforcement push, reworking dozens of low?level violations and expanding cure periods under the Small Business Forward Executive Order. The city also launched Business Express Service Teams (BEST) to serve as a single point of contact across agencies.
While both speed and integrity matter for permitting and online applications, the principal impediment for business owners is multi?agency sequencing and unclear timelines. A Comptroller survey found nearly 30% of small businesses waited six months or more for the approvals needed to open. For example, large alterations typically take three to four months, while other smaller ones take four to six weeks.
New York City’s own MyCity Business portal already offers a front door and status tracking. What owners need next are statutory timelines and transparent public dashboards showing median time?to?permit by agency and permit class. Building one cross?agency digital application inside MyCity Business could allow an entrepreneur to upload documents once to autofill into all relevant agency databases.
While Mamdani’s quintupled pledge for one?to?one assistance is compelling, case management will never operate smoothly with so many rules and regulations necessitating onerous paperwork. Ultimately, New York City should pair fine relief on low?severity, first?time issues with rule consolidation—not substitute for it.
Instead of expanding bureaucratic hand?holding, Mamdani should promise a deregulatory budget—a one?in/one?out (or stronger) rule—so that assistance to small businesses grows only as the regulatory maze shrinks. In a recent paper, the Manhattan Institute unveiled its step-by-step guide for the state to implement its own zero-based budgets for regulations.
Additionally, international practice shows how these offsetting tools can keep regulatory costs and confusion down, while preventing the burdens of high regulations from harming small businesses year after year.
The priority for entrepreneurs is fewer steps, fewer forms, and fewer agencies— not halved fines and a reshuffled bill at the end. Prudent deregulation is the answer that allows businesses to enter the market with limited barriers, compete freely, and ultimately provide the goods and services millions of New Yorkers enjoy.
Originally published in The Washington Times
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