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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, recovering from New York City's retail apocalypse and other ways to help small businesses in New York City with the New York City Small Business Services Commissioner, Kevin D. Kim. The Adams administration, as some of you know, is trying to revive retail in neighborhoods around the city and grow opportunities for other small businesses as well with their so-called City of Yes rezoning plan.

Next Wednesday, May 29th, they're having a Small Business Expo at South Street Seaport, Pier 36 down there, on the very Lower East Side of Manhattan. It's part of Small Business Month, something the city recognizes in May. With us now is the city Small Business Services Commissioner, Kevin D. Kim. Commissioner, thanks for coming on. Welcome to WNYC.

Commissioner Kevin D. Kim: Good morning, Brian. Thank you for having me.

Brian Lehrer: We invite calls from any of you now who are small business owners or aspiring small business owners, retail or otherwise, for Commissioner Kim. 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692, call or text. Commissioner, just to give potential callers some more context for what they might call about because I know one of the reasons for your appearance here today from both of our standpoints is so you can be accessible on the radio for call-ins from people who are owners or aspiring owners, are there certain kinds of questions you get the most from small business owners or those who want to be?

Kevin D. Kim: Yes, Brian. Thank you for that question. We often get questions about capital access. How do I get money to start a business, to fund my operating business, or even to grow a business? We have answers for you. We have a team dedicated to helping people understand all their options. We've also been very innovative using a technological tool, just a one-stop-shop website, where we partnered with the Biden-Harris administration and Next Street and Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth to create a website where any business owner can go and just punch in whatever their needs are and get all that information on one site.

Incredibly enough, it hadn't existed prior to us doing this pilot program with the federal government, and now it's there. At the end of it, you can actually still get connected to a live financing advisor. You realize even with all the technological advances we've made in this world, people still want to talk to human beings.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. What's the biggest complaint you get from owners about red tape or enforcement they think is excessive or whatever it is? What's the biggest complaint or a few of the biggest?

Kevin D. Kim: One of the concerns we often hear, and I've been out to the commercial quarters in each of the 51 City Council districts with almost every single council member, and we often hear the same thing. We hear that government navigation, getting licenses, permits, just trying to open on time, and also trying to understand the various regulations that are out there overseeing small business operations. They just want a better way to understand that and they also want it released.

The second executive order that Mayor Adams issued was centered around helping small businesses, helping them have some relief from the overly burdensome regulations that many of them face. On that, January 4th, 2022, he directed Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer, myself, and the Chief Efficiency Officer at the time, Melanie La Rocca, to just take a look at all of our sister agencies that regulate small businesses and just examine those [crosstalk].

Brian Lehrer: What's an example of something you overturned? If you can go there, what's the most hated regulation on New York City business?

Kevin D. Kim: Well, I think there's a list of about a hundred that we were able to do. I'll give you an example. For example, from the Dry Cleaners Association, they often talked about inheriting spaces that had boilers downstairs. The boilers need to be inspected every year, but oftentimes, when you're a small business owner and you're operating a particular type of business, you're not as familiar with the infrastructure of that building itself. We're talking about smaller type landlords where the leases, oftentimes, do have obligations upon a tenant, the operating tenant, to maintain those annual inspections of boilers and other infrastructure items.

This is the kind of education that we needed to get out there, so we've made it so that there would be a waiver program for the first time and so that the business owners would now know what they needed to do going forward. This leads to a program that we have around our Commercial Lease Assistance. It's free legal services. Whenever someone's about to start a retail business, we encourage them to take advantage of our free Commercial Lease Assistance where lawyers will come in and help negotiate that lease.

Also, if you're operating a business and you're about to renew your lease, we also provide free legal services. Oftentimes, so many tenants just don't have any idea what's actually in the lease, and it hurts them down the road.

Brian Lehrer: That's good to know. My guest is New York City Small Business Services Commissioner, Kevin D. Kim. If you're just joining us, small business owners or aspiring ones, 212-433-WNYC, with your most hated regulation that you deal with in your business, you can call about that, or mostly any question that you have for Commissioner Kim. 212-433-WNYC, call or text. 212-433-9692. The so-called retail apocalypse, how are we doing in New York City retail-wise now compared to before the pandemic or compared to the lowest point during the depths of the pandemic?

Kevin D. Kim: I think a lot of people don't realize that just before the pandemic we were entering into an economic slowdown and retail vacancies were going up even back then. Then obviously, the pandemic came and devastated a lot of our businesses. Thousands of businesses either closed or were on the brink of closing. A major focus for us was on ensuring that storefront vacancies would go down, and luckily, the latest report has us trending downwards. There's still a lot more work to do.

The data shows in the outer boroughs in particular, and I'll take the Bronx, for example, where the storefront vacancy and retail vacancy rates are much lower than the citywide average. I think part of it has to do with the hybrid work that people have adapted to. They stay local, near where they live, and they're able to frequent their mom-and-pop stores in their neighborhoods. That's something that we've seen. The Midtown Manhattan vacancy and Downtown Manhattan, that's been a little bit more stubborn.

I think there are initiatives that we've been working on with the City of Yes, economic opportunity programs and initiatives, to try to address that. What we are seeing is positive in the outer boroughs, and we're continuing to plan around that. We've invested over $27 million since the Adams administration in the smaller commercial quarter districts, the smaller bids, and we're seeing definite positive impacts from that investment.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a call. Damani in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with Small Business Services Commissioner, Kevin D. Kim. Hi, Damani.

Damani: Hi, Brian. A longtime listener, a longtime caller. I was just calling because I have a company, it's called TRULYBROOKLYN, and before COVID, we were bridging communities. We were telling people in Williamsburg what was going on in Coney Island. Then COVID happened and people didn't-- We weren't going anywhere. We had to pivot. During that pivot, we were enrolled in the Employee Protection Program where we were given funds to give to our employees so that we can still try and maintain something.

Well, we never did as a company. TRULYBROOKLYN hasn't really recovered in full, yet we're still responsible for this Employee Protection Program funding. I'm wondering, is there a legal resource, are there any resources for us that we can reach out to to help remedy or get some buffering so that we're not worse off than when we began?

Brian Lehrer: Commissioner?

Kevin D. Kim: I believe you're referring to the SBA programs. That's the Small Business Administration federal programs. Our agency, we have a dedicated team of small business advocates who can definitely help you get in touch with the right people in the federal government, SBA department, to help try to find a solution. It's not something the city is administering in this particular program, but that's what we do. We are able to connect people and just navigate through the government system on a state, federal, or local level.

Damani: Okay. It's the STA. That stands for what exactly?

Kevin D. Kim: SBA stands for Small Business Administration, which is a federal government arm.

Damani: Oh, SB.

Kevin D. Kim: Yes, Small Business Service. We are New York City's small business agency.

Brian Lehrer: All right. I hope that's helpful, Damani. Pat in Floral Park, you're on WNYC. Hi, Pat.

Pat: Hey, how are you? My question to the commissioner is, I see a lot of large, empty spaces in Manhattan. I was wondering, does he see certain types of businesses that those spaces are seeking or that are looking for that? When are they going to move into these spaces, or are they going to reduce the size of the spaces?

Brian Lehrer: Do you have a sense, Pat, let me follow up with you, as to what used to be in what you're calling big vacant spaces?

Pat: Well, look at a lot of the new buildings. The whole ground floor is empty. Some of them appear to be like old banks or maybe retail spaces at one time, and it just seems like the city is giving up on ground-floor retail space. The commissioner would know better than I the [inaudible 00:11:01] issues-

Brian Lehrer: Pat--

Pat: -that are available.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. I think this gets us directly to your and the mayor's City of Yes rezoning proposal, Commissioner. No?

Kevin D. Kim: Yes, absolutely. That is something we are working very closely with the Department of City Planning. Since 1961, these zoning restrictions have never been updated. There are unreasonable restrictions on a lot of these retail spaces and commercial quarters. For example, you're going to see in the zoning laws a mention of telegraph companies, but there's nothing about cell phone companies. That's how outdated they are.

You have spaces that can be bakeries and you can bake bread, but you can't make salsa. You can have a bicycle shop and sell bicycles, but you can't repair them there. I think the overly restrictive zoning rules have really impacted the types of stores that can be filling these empty storefronts. That's why we're really pushing for the City of Yes economic opportunity to pass next week.

Brian Lehrer: Pat, thank you for raising that. I appreciate your call. Let me drill down on what you were just saying because I saw some of the more absurd examples of the existing rules, one of which you just mentioned that the Daily News published. I imagine your office drew their attention to those. In some places, you can run a store that sells bicycles, but you can't repair those same bicycles in that location. That's the one you just mentioned.

That was also in the Daily News, or a dance studio can rent space on the second floor of a building but not in an empty first-floor storefront. What was the original reason for rules like those, if you know?

Kevin D. Kim: I think for dancing, for example, I think there were -- I don't know the exact historic background around it, but I think communities, in general, are very concerned about just having balanced types of businesses in their community. I've served on a community board in Midtown Manhattan before and it's really important for every community to balance the needs of small business owners and the residents.

I think maybe with dancing, it's associated with louder music, and so there were concerns, "Let's not put it on the ground floor," but as we know from now, everything we're talking about is unreasonable to today's standards. To really be able to address the retail vacancy challenge that we have after COVID, we really do need to have these changes in the City of Yes zoning policies.

Brian Lehrer: You talk about putting dance studios on ground floor spaces, and that should be easier to do. I read in the news organization The City something that's sort of the opposite of that, that some people are objecting to in the blueprint. While City Council, from what I see, supports most of the changes you're proposing, some are meeting with resistance, like allowing a home office or business to open in a residential building on floors above where people's homes are.

Another one is allowing more delivery warehouses in neighborhoods where people live far from food shopping stores. They may want more grocery stores, but they don't want Amazon warehouses. Can you address either of those?

Kevin D. Kim: I think there's a fine place and manner for all different types of businesses. I think when you're talking about warehousing and the industrial portion of the economy, that can be a separate discussion in itself. I think in terms of what we're seeing with how people have changed the way they work, as I mentioned before, a lot of people tend to work from home or in a hybrid situation, so allowing for more home office options I think just is what we're dealing with in reality today.

What happens when people are working in certain areas from home, the local commercial quarters, they definitely benefit because now you're ordering lunch from your local deli downstairs, or you're going to pick up the book for your children's birthday party from the corner toy store. There's a lot of benefits economically of just allowing more options of businesses to open.

Brian Lehrer: When it comes to home office, as you say, remote work, I don't think this is about, an individual can sit on their couch and work at their computer if they're remotely logging into work. This is about having employees in your home, right?

Kevin D. Kim: Yes. I think that how you define home these days is very different and how you define office workspace is very different. I think that wherever you can find opportunity for economic expansion, we should take advantage of it. Also, that's why we do have zoning laws, in general, to make sure that certain spaces aren't filling up with the wrong types of businesses. I think, in general, when you're talking about today's world and somebody deciding that they want to expand their accounting practice or their law practice, and just because they're using their living room to have a few more employees, I don't think that's unreasonable.

I think to the idea of just general retail vacancy, what I would really encourage is, if anyone has an idea of starting a business that they should really check out our May 29th expo because the 70,000 square foot space, we're not just holding a regular fair. We've designed this space so that somebody with a business idea can start walking through the space as if they were turning through the life of a business.

You're going to come to an area where you're going to get ideas on how you start a business with our business solutions centers that are spread out all around the city to help with just the corporate documents, the legal documents you might need to start a business. Then you're going to go through to the capital access area, and we're going to show you all the ways you can get access to our community development financial institutions, CDFIs, which are nonprofit lenders. Then we're going to show you how to get government contracts and also get MWBE, Minority Women Business Owned Enterprise Certification, and so on.

We really are trying to take a whole of city [inaudible 00:17:31] approach on this but really walk people through. Anybody who's ever thought of starting a business should really come down on May 29th and help us with this challenge of filling all these retail spaces.

Brian Lehrer: A few more minutes with the New York City Small Business Services Commissioner, Kevin D. Kim, taking your phone calls and talking about his and Mayor Adams' new City of Yes rezoning proposal to make it easier for businesses to start up in New York or to grow in New York, also recovering from the so-called retail apocalypse at the depths of the pandemic. 212-433-WNYC. With your questions and comments, 212-433-9692. Let me give you two of the hot-button ones bundled together and see what you have to say about them.

One comes in a text message. Listener writes, "My question for today's guest is, why would any small business owner be encouraged to open a new business when so many street vendors are now taking over and there are no crackdowns on them by the Adams administration?" "The competition setting up their 'shop' right in front of your business is ridiculous," writes one listener. Bob in Manhattan has the other one we're going to bundle into this question. Bob, you're on WNYC with the commissioner. Hello.

Bob: Petty theft [unintelligible 00:18:55] police. In Florida, you'll go to jail if you steal a pack of gum. Here in New York, you'll go home with a pack of gum in your pocket that night. You got police [unintelligible 00:19:05] the broken windows [unintelligible 00:19:06]. You got to arrest these people. How can you have cops in every store? Nobody wants [unintelligible 00:19:11] when somebody can just walk in and rob you.

Brian Lehrer: Bob, thank you. To that one first, how overstated, in your opinion, if you think it is overstated, was Bob's description?

Kevin D. Kim: The mayor has said from his campaigning and from day one that public safety is the prerequisite to prosperity, and so we've taken the approach that the retail theft challenges that the caller mentioned is very important to address. We've done that. We've started a retail theft task force that's gotten together. You will see that crime is down in five of the seven major categories since the administration began.

What we've also found in the data is that there's about 327 or so people that are just repeat offenders. We targeted that population with a precision Repeat Offender Program to understand better why and who they were and to really hone in on pressuring the state as well to address the laws that allow for people to come in and out of the system the way it's been happening. We understand the challenges. The state also did a great job in this past budget passing a $3,000 tax deduction for security systems that store owners can opt into.

NYPD has a free program. It's an opt-in camera feed pilot program from the store owners' security cameras right into the NYPD system. There are initiatives that are addressing this. We know that if people don't feel comfortable walking into stores or if they feel that other people are just coming in and taking and they have to pay that this is a real hit to the small business owners.

Brian Lehrer: How many retail businesses do you think the city has lost because the owners were running away from repeated incidents of theft? Is there any way to put a number on it? Because we also get calls from people who are saying, "This is overstated. This is being used as an excuse by small businesses for other reasons that businesses fail, or to enable a police crackdown in general."

Kevin D. Kim: What we do know, because we've also employed more technology tools like our partnership with Live XYZ, that there are about 140,000 storefront businesses throughout the city. No one really knew exactly how many retail outlets and businesses there were until this past year when we partnered up and got this number. What we are finding is that it's really hard to say how many are closing because of one particular issue.

I think running a business is hard. I've been an entrepreneur. My parents were immigrants, small business owners when we came here in 1975. You see the ups and downs and the challenges of running any small business. You hear the numbers of every restaurant owner starting up a business, and then 80% to 90% fail in the first couple of years. It's hard to pinpoint any one factor. What is important is that you have trust in the government and the ecosystem that you're trying to come into to start a business.

We believe that we've created an environment in the City of Yes initiative that we've been pushing out. The numbers are showing that. One out of every six small businesses in existence today has started since the Adams administration. We know some of that is obviously from the natural economic rebound coming out of the pandemic, but we also know that we've had initiatives like our New York City Business Express Service team, which helps businesses open in half the time that has also helped over 5,000 businesses save over $31 million in the past two years, just getting through government navigation faster.

We know that our Small Business Forward initiative with a hundred reforms, where we either cure violations or we give you first-time warnings or we've knocked it off the books completely, is saving small business owners over $8 million annually going forward. We know these initiatives are definitely creating a more conducive environment for anyone who might want to start a business. This is still the greatest city in the world, and the American dream is alive and well. We want people to feel that they have a shot. This expo is all about that.

Brian Lehrer: We'll close with you telling people exactly about the expo that's next Wednesday at South Street Seaport, but to the other listener's comment about unfair competition from street vendors. Again, we get calls on the other side of that too who say, "Why does the NYPD have to harass these vendors who are generally people just trying to make a living and who don't have the means to open a storefront business?" Where's the line between unfair competition for those who have the storefronts, which we understand that concern, and the advocates for the vendors?

Kevin D. Kim: The legal street vendors at SBS, we consider them to be our smallest of small businesses. We provide a whole suite of services to them, to any street vendor. We give them all the material they need to understand what they need to do to be in compliance with all laws and regulations.

Brian Lehrer: Of course, many vendors are licensed, but the issue that the listener raises is many are not.

Kevin D. Kim: The ones that aren't, when Mayor Adams shifted the enforcement from Department of Consumer and Worker Protection over to Department of Sanitation, I think you will find that in many quarters, that has definitely had an impact. When a street vendor is operating in a manner where it is directly in competition with the storefront in front of them, for example, if there's a coffee shop and you're selling coffee without a license right in front of that, it doesn't make sense. I think everybody would agree that that doesn't make sense.

What we've been working on is focusing on time, place, and manner for all the street vendors to be able to find a place at the appropriate times to be able to operate a business. I think Corona Plaza is a good example of where we're trying to manage the outlay and allow street vendors to come in and have a business but also control it in a manner so that they're not just everywhere and operating in the manner that the caller suggested would be detrimental to the small business owners who have retail spaces.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Small Business Expo next Wednesday, May 29th, 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM, South Street Seaport, Pier 36. Who should go?

Kevin D. Kim: Every single business owner. We have over 200,000 small businesses in New York City. We've already had over 7,500 business owners RSVP. You can sign up and find out all the services that we have around; Commercial Lease Assistance, free legal advice, free capital access information. We want everybody to show up. There'll be a networking space. You can come and learn about all of the ways to contract with government. We have 40 of our sister agencies coming with their procurement officers to give out that information.

We encourage anyone who's ever thought of opening a business, who's operating a business, who wants to grow a business to come and really just take advantage of everything that we have for free to offer them.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, I read that you are leaving as Small Businesses commissioner. You sound fully engaged. What's up?

Kevin D. Kim: [laughs] Well, no, this has been the best job of my life, being able to do something where my parents lived the American dream by coming here with very little from Korea. My mother designed artificial flowers. My father would take her designs, go into the Garments District, knock on wholesaler doors until people started buying her designs. It took them seven years.

For me, watching them go through that experience and myself having been an entrepreneur and not really understanding all the government resources that were there, even though I spoke English fluently, I grew up here, well-educated, made me go on a mission that when I took this role, I wanted outreach to be our focus. This expo on the 29th is an extension of that. We've also invested a lot in our-- Yes, go ahead.

Brian Lehrer: Where are you going?

Kevin D. Kim: Oh. I have a number of options that I'm considering. I had law practice previously and I've done consulting work and I've done entrepreneurial work in the education space. I'm considering all my options, but the main focus is really to be able to spend more time with my two young daughters. They're still at that age where I want to be able to enjoy the summer coming up.

Brian Lehrer: No scandal we'll hear about on the day after. Can I assume that?

Kevin D. Kim: [laughs] No, no scandal. I'm sure you've heard of our jingle. Some people are like, "Why don't you start a 50-over K-pop band and call it something like BTS AARP?" I don't think I'm doing that.

Brian Lehrer: Kevin D. Kim, for a little while longer the New York City Small Business Services Commissioner, thank you for laying out in such detail what the city is doing right now and letting small business owners and aspiring ones in the audience know about the expo.

Kevin D. Kim: Thank you, Brian. It was a great pleasure.

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