In today’s face-off between Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Democrat Bill Thompson, Latino voters in northern Manhattan are being urged to choose none of the above. Several small business owners have put up about 1,000 posters in Dominican storefronts, opposing both candidates.
Campaign poster on store in Inwood
“Dominican small businesses are in crisis,” the poster says in Spanish under crossed-out pictures of the two leading candidates. “Yet neither Bloomberg nor Thompson have done anything to prevent Dominican small business owners from enduring the high rents, extortions and landlord abuse.”
Shop owners in Washington Heights and Inwood say they face two major problems when renewing their leases: landlords who hike up rental prices disproportionately without any controls, and under-the-table payments that some landlords ask for, just to re-negotiate a lease. Some store owners and advocates have characterized the latter practice as “extortion.”
“Right now, when you want to renew your lease, they’re like, ‘Hey, you want your lease? Then you have to give me $5,000 or $10,000,’” says Ramon Murphy, a bodega owner and president of the Bodega Association of the United States. He says his group represents about 11,000 bodegas throughout the state of New York.
Albania Perez, 36, hung one the posters in her Inwood beauty salon. She says she knows several business owners who have had to pay their landlords under the table, although it’s not a problem for her. A recent survey by the USA Latin Chamber of Commerce showed that 31 percent of Hispanic businesses in New York City said they had been asked “for money as a condition to continue or begin the negotiation of a lease renewal.”
“When you have greedy landlords and you have no regulation, that’s what happens,” says Steve Null, who heads the Coalition To Save Hispanic Small Businesses. The group, created in March, says it represents 67 business, union and tenant organizations across the city.
“Right now, when your lease is up, the landlord can do whatever he wants,” Null says. “If you don’t agree with the new lease, they can kick you out.”
The coalition wants the candidates to endorse and pass the Small Business Survival Act, introduced in June by City Councilman Robert Jackson, who represents northern Manhattan. The bill would establish rights for tenants who renew their leases. If landlords and tenants can’t agree on new lease terms, the case would go to arbitration, putting an end to abusive evictions and under-the-table payments.
“I think it would be a major business-changing piece of legislation if it passes, but I don’t think it will pass,” says Null.
Landlord and real estate associations oppose the bill. Jacky Monterosso of the Rent Stabilization Association says it’s really about trying to implement commercial rent control — similar to the rules that some city residents have in their apartment buildings. “Commercial rent control is an absolute oddity in this economy,” Monterosso said.
The Real Estate Board of New York says the local real estate market is declining — and so are the rents, making Jackson’s tenant-protection bill unnecessary. “What we need in New York is to bring down the costs of doing business, like taxes, fees, fines …,” said Michael Slattery, the board’s senior vice president. He called the bill “unconstitutional and counterproductive.”
Supporters of tenant protection aimed their “don’t vote” posters at Dominicans because they are the primary target of extortion, according to Null. “They pick mostly on immigrant minorities. Because of the language barrier, Latino businesses are the worst hit by this problem.”
Of the 130,000 Latino-owned businesses in New York, half belong to Dominicans, according to the New York City Small Business Services.
But it’s not clear if the posters had any impact on Dominican voter turnout. Walking down Broadway, the main commercial street in northern Manhattan, few were visible in storefronts the day before the election. Many shop owners hadn’t seen them, and others didn’t approve.
“Landlords be abusing us, they can change the rent whenever they want,” says Michael Martinez, 21, who works at Paloma delicatessen on 177th Street. “But the posters, I think that’s wrong. I think it’s blocking people’s judgment by saying they’re both the same.”
Neither Bloomberg nor Thompson have endorsed Jackson’s bill, but both candidates focused their final campaign day on promises to help small businesses, according to The New York Times. “New York City is at war with its small business,” Thompson said during a last-minute tour of the city on Monday. “That needs to end today.”
Bloomberg also toured the five boroughs on Monday. “We’re trying to help small businesses that need loans, give them advice on how to structure a loan application, or how to deal with city government, trying to reduce taxes,” he said.
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