Democratic mayoral nominee Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani (A.D. 36), recently endorsed by the Bronx Democratic Party on Sept. 2, had paid another visit to The Bronx on Aug. 14 as part of a five-borough tour. The aim of the visit was to meet with small business owners, highlight the impact the actions of the federal government has had on such businesses, discuss the response needed to negate those actions by cities and states across the country, and outline the measures he plans to implement in order to safeguard the bottom line of small businesses.

 

Mamdani was accompanied at the press conference by State Sen. Gustavo Rivera (S.D. 33), Christian Ramos, president of the Kingsbridge Merchants Association, and the owners of Nohble clothing store, where the event was held, located on Jerome Avenue close to the Kingsbridge Armory on the border of Kingsbridge Heights and Fordham Manor.

 

Rivera, who broadly represents much of the northwest Bronx, along with some or all of Fordham, Norwood, Bedford Park, Van Nest, and Allerton, said Mamdani had a very clear vision of what small businesses mean to both the City and the State of New York, and how important it was to protect them. “I’m very much looking forward to working along with him to make sure that that happens,” the senator said.

 

Later, Ramos, owner of Blue Chus shoe store, located at 22 East Kingsbridge Road, said his business has been around for about 30 years, having been opened by his father, “as a shoe repair guy, a very a small business owner.” He lamented that such businesses are in danger of disappearing.

 

“But we here today with a new candidate, a very young fellow who would like to make changes in our neighborhood, our district, and definitely, this is the time,” Ramos said, adding that for more than 20 years, small business owners have not had any type of protection or any type of regulation [to protect them].”

 

He talked about easy wins around license inspections and called for a 10-year minimum lease. “That’s unfair that we open a store and [have] a 3-4-year lease,” he said. Ramos gave another example, saying he found it funny when Mamdani questioned why small businesses had to pay real estate property taxes when they were not the actual landlords.

 

Ramos said landlords dictated the amount to be paid and that this too should be regulated. He alleged small business owners received tickets and fines without warning, even after inspections. “We’re not talking about a $20-$40 fine,” he said. “We talk about hundreds and hundreds, sometimes one thousand.” He added that Mom & Pop stores were keeping their doors open for their customers and to support their families.

 

“My father opened the store, make a hard effort, and I keep doing something very simple as fixing shoes, selling shoes right here in the corner, so we don’t want to keep the store closed and put the gate down,” he said. Ramos then addressed the Trump administration directly saying, “Do not cut any funding for small businesses because we really need it. We need to really support our stores, our storefronts, our ceiling, our floor.”

 

He said such funding and grants help small businesses. “As a merchant, we need to end the city commercial crisis, [with] any fund, any grant that could help small businesses owner[s].” Of Mamdani, Ramos said he was a candidate who engaged with retailers and prioritized the work of helping small business owners all across the City.

 

Ramos said in the Kingsbridge Road merchant corridor, there are more than 200 businesses from nail salons to barber shops, to bodegas. “Not only Latino. Obviously, you meet a lot of Ecuadorian guys in Queens,” he said. “I’m from Ecuador in the Dominican neighborhood, but important in Kingsbridge, in this district, we have from everywhere. We got Black African American. We have Vietnamese. We got [from] everywhere.”

 

He concluded, “As a small business owner, we would like to have, in the name of the merchants today, we want a solution, not only hopes, not only desire. We [are] demanding compromise and dedication from our City.”

 

Christine Noh, owner of the clothes store, later addressed those gathered (accompanied, we understand, by her father, Mr. Noh). She thanked everyone for spotlighting small businesses, and said it has been a really challenging economic environment in which to operate. “Increasingly, we really need support from government, whether it’s on the local level or the federal level, to support us with a lot of the issues around increasing costs, and as well as just making sure that we’re able to create job opportunities for the folks that we employ,” she said.

 

Noh continued, “Nohble, itself, has been here since 1982 and we have employed many, many folks from the neighborhood, and continue to do so, and would love to continue to do so as well, so really leaning on our local elected officials to do all that they can to continue to support us.”

 

For his part, Mamdani said he was glad to stand alongside both small business owners and representatives from the merchants association. Referring to Rivera, he said he was proud to call him a friend, a colleague, and a supporter of this campaign for many, many months.

 

He said Bronxites cannot afford the city they call home. “That is a struggle that many residents of The Bronx feel individually,” he said. “It’s also a struggle that I know our small businesses are feeling at this moment. From 2020 to 2022, the population of The Bronx dropped by 6.3%; that’s more than any other borough in New York City.”

The mayoral nominee said people were leaving for cost reasons as New York City was the most expensive city in the U.S. “When I interviewed voters on Fordham Road a week after Election Day in November, I heard this message again and again, an inability to afford that which was within reach four years prior, whether it be citations of rent, Con Edison bills, child care, or even a MetroCard, that it felt like every aspect of daily life was getting further and further out of reach.”

 

He said it was no surprise that because of this, many Bronx neighborhoods had swung towards U.S. President Donald Trump in the last presidential election. “These are some of the very New Yorkers who have worked the hardest while receiving the least,” Mamdani said. “They heard a candidate, now a president, who ran on a message of cheaper groceries, on making for an easier cost of living, on delivering that which seemed out of reach, and yet we know him to not only be insincere, ridiculous and horrific, but to prey upon a very real sense of despair in the lives of New Yorkers and Americans across the country.”

 

He went on to say that despite this, Trump, instead, cut SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits, which not only impacted New Yorkers who have such benefits, but the small businesses that rely on them. “We know that 27% of revenue in grocery stores here in The Bronx comes from SNAP. We know that number increases significantly when we speak to bodega owners.”

 

Mamdani said this action was compounded by the Trump administration’s decision to “throw millions of Americans off of their health insurance.” He added, “This is being done all in the name of the largest wealth transfer from Americans who have the least, to those who have more than they know what to do with, and in the face of this, we see a necessity, a responsibility of leadership to stand up to that kind of a vision that essentially pillages the very boroughs that we call home.”

 

The Democratic mayoral nominee said he stood “in clear and sincere opposition to the Trump agenda that is preying upon New Yorkers” and in opposition to candidates such as former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who he said would “conspire with the architect of such a vision in a moment when New Yorkers are looking for an answer” of how to fight back. Norwood News reached out to the former governor’s campaign for comment on the allegation that he was conspiring with the president to win the mayoral race.

 

He added in part, “I have not sought nor would I accept President Trump’s endorsement.” Of questions on Adams’ continued campaign, he said, “I don’t know what Mayor Adams is doing. It’s his decision.” Asked if he had been contacted by the Trump administration, Cuomo said, “No.”

 

Back in The Bronx, Mamdani also referenced high rents and ICE raids as other factors impacting on people’s everyday lives. “We know that if Andrew Cuomo were to win this race, Donald Trump would find an ally in City Hall, an ally who has been funded by the same billionaires that gave us the second Trump administration, an ally that has been funded by a million-dollar check from DoorDash.”

 

He went on to talk about how at a time when the focus is on safer streets “we have politicians being purchased by those that seek to influence labor, street, and safety regulations.”

 

He said New York City needed a mayor who would stand up for New Yorkers and see small businesses as partners in the work that he said has to be done. Mamdani said his proposals included cutting fines and fees for small businesses by 50%, citing the unreasonableness of having to spend “$25 a year as a restaurant for the right to sell a frozen dessert.” He said he would eliminate that fee.

 

He said such rules were the relic of a bygone era and that it was unacceptable that “the best teams within New York City government that are supposed to assist small businesses [were] only being utilized by 3% of small business owners.”

 

He said his administration would create a mom and pop czar and increase funding to those governmental “best teams” by more than $10 million to prevent New Yorkers having to “fill out 24 forms, go to seven agencies, and attend 12 in-person events, to open up a barber shop.”

 

He talked again of partnering with small businesses whose owners he said come from all around the world. “One of the things that binds us together is an aspiration of what life could be like in this city, and so often it is small businesses that are fulfilling those aspirations for New Yorkers.”

 

According to his website, if elected, among other measures, Mamdani also plans to speed up permitting, making online applications easier, increase funding for 1:1 small business support by 500 percent, provide better legal assistance around leases, enhance the functionality of the existing MyCity Business Portal, launched in 2023, for small businesses, and build on the success of the MASH (Multi-Agency Support for Hospitality) program launched by the Office of Nightlife (ONL) and SBS.

 

According to the Adams administration, nightlife is a vital part of the city’s economy, culture, and identity, supporting nearly 300,000 jobs and generating $35.1 billion in economic impact.

 

During the Q&A that followed, Mamdani was asked what was discussed during a recent call he reportedly had with former U.S. President Barack Obama, with whom Mamdani has been compared. Mamdani was born in Kampala, Uganda, into an Indian family. His father is academic, Mahmood Mamdani, and his mother, filmmaker, Mira Nair, the director of “Monsoon Wedding,” among other movies. Obama’s father is from Nyang’oma Kogelo in neighboring Kenya in Central East Africa, a 6-hour drive from Kampala.

“That call happened soon after the primary,” Mamdani said. “It was a call that I was honored to receive, and the contents of it were focused on the campaign that we ran, the importance of hope in our politics, and the ways in which we govern to deliver on that. The lessons of that conversation are ones that I hold close to me as we continue to build this campaign to win the general election, and it was an honor to receive that time and those reflections from the former president.”

 

He was asked if the president had signaled endorsing Mamdani and whether he had met with U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer at all. “I leave the decision of endorsements to to the president [Obama],” Mamdani said. He said his campaign was focused on New Yorkers’ needs around affordability and added that he had spoken to Schumer a number of times by phone.

 

Mamdani was also asked, given that Obama had also been subject to othering and xenophobia when he ran for president, whether the former president had given Mamdani any advice on how to handle that. As reported, Mamdani has also received death threats and is now accompanied by security at public events.

 

He said, “We spoke about the importance in a moment such as this, where politics is often characterized by a language of darkness, the necessity of hope in how we speak, and how we orient ourselves to the world, and I’m lucky to have the example of the president in understanding the ways in which we confront these challenges, which, as you’ve said, are not hypothetical.”

 

Mamdani cited a recent press conference on Staten Island, where he said he was heartened by the response of so many attending but to get to them, he had to walk through “a number of New Yorkers who told me to go back to where I came from.” He added, “And I know that those New Yorkers are representative just of themselves and yet, sadly, that is what politics has become for far too many.”

 

Another question was about remarks Cuomo had made in reference to the most recent jobs report for New York City which showed that less than a thousand private sector jobs had been created. Cuomo alleged Mamdani would present an “anti capitalist vision” for the city [which would not help the job numbers].

 

He was also asked about a video his campaign released which urged Cuomo to release his client / donor list, further to reports that one of Cuomo’s donors, Glenn Dubin, had ties to convicted, disgraced and deceased child predator, Jeffrey Epstein. Mamdani was asked if his intent in calling Cuomo to release his list was to pair him with somebody who is extremely dislikable (Epstein).

 

“I don’t need to do much to make the governor appear extremely dislikeable,” Mamdani said, adding that the intent of the video was to shine a light on what journalists had uncovered over many months about what the former governor did after resigning in disgrace. “We know that which has been reported, and yet we also know that there is likely more, because, as is the case with Andrew Cuomo, when you think you’ve found out about all of his scandals, there seems to always be another one just beyond your view,” Mamdani said.

 

In reference to the importance of small businesses, he added,  “To hear from a former governor about the difficulties of attracting additional jobs without the recognition of what the Trump administration has done to make it so difficult… I mean, the tariffs, the business climate that he has created, and the impact of tourism in New York City, we’re seeing estimates of about a $4 billion loss compared to other years in this city.”

 

Mamdani said this had massive ramifications for the ability of the city to continue functioning. “And yet I cannot recall the last time the former governor even brought that up,” he said. “We are less than a year away from the largest and most popular sporting event in the world [FIFA World Cup] coming to this city, and yet what we have is a sense among so many that they are not welcome here. I look forward to being the first immigrant mayor of the city in generations to make clear that the world is not only welcome here, that this is the city of the world.”

 

On the question of being labeled anti-capitalist and a Democratic Socialist, Mamdani said, “My policy would be to ensure that government lives up to its responsibility of ensuring dignity for each and every New Yorker, not simply determining which one is worthy of it, and I’ve spoken often about the fact that we need not look further than Dr. King to better understand what this vision is.”

 

He added, “He said, ‘Call it democracy or call it democratic socialism, there must be a better distribution of wealth for all of God’s children in this country.’ We are here in New York City, a city where, while nationwide income inequality has gone down, it has actually increased across these five boroughs. It’s the wealthiest city in the wealthiest country in the world, but one in four New Yorkers are living in poverty. That is untenable.”

 

Mamdani continued, “And to speak about job creation without also reckoning with the fact that the city has thousands of unfilled positions today, positions which the money has been allocated for, but there is very little interest in actually ensuring someone can join our 300,000 person-plus workforce, it’s to show that there is little interest from the former governor in the actual act of the governing we need if we’re talking about hiring more New Yorkers.”

 

He also talked about a vision for streamlining OMB [The Office of Management and Budget], and changing a culture of ‘no’ to a culture of ‘how to ensure that when a New Yorker applies for a job with the city, they don’t have to wait for six months to actually receive an approval.'” Mamdani added, “We know too many New Yorkers who have received an application, pursued it, received an approval, and then waited and waited and waited, and they could not afford to wait any longer.”

New York Mayor Eric Adams has been addressing such complaints by hosting a series of Hiring Town Halls throughout the five boroughs with the aim of meeting people in-person to avoid the long wait times, and sometimes hiring the same day. He also brought mobile units with teams of Small Business Services (SBS) employees out to the five boroughs to try to eliminate some of the bureaucratic red tape for small businesses and make SBS services more accessible to them.

 

Mamdani was also asked how he planned to cut the referenced fines and fees by 50%, and how he would cut down on the time it takes for prospective business owners to obtain necessary licenses etc.

 

As reported, the topic of daycare oversight inspections, for example, has been hotly debated. A then-new daycare in Kingsbridge Heights underwent a number of inspections prior to being opened in recent years and yet one-year-old Nicholas Feliz Dominici still died of an accidental fentanyl overdose as a result of being contaminated by drugs used in an underground drug ring that was being run at the center.

 

Mamdani said, “We need not look further than the achievements of the previous administration, which cut fines and fees by 40%.” He said as Rivera had stated, the city budget of more than $115 billion is not being funded in any significant way by such fines and fees, but for the impacted small businesses, those fines and fees can be suffocating.

 

He said he would also question whether the rationale for such fees was compliance or punishment, and cited examples of corporate filings and other processes seen in Pennsylvania, where the amount of time it took for a barber shop to receive its license went from a multi-week process to just two days [following a policy change].

 

“This is a question of focus, a question of looking into our bureaucracy, and ensuring that it is working in the manner that it was intended because there are too many ways in which city government operates that you cannot find an answer for, beyond ‘this is how it is,’ and that’s unacceptable,” he said.

 

The Democratic mayoral nominee was also asked what his response would be to critics who argue that his plan for city-run grocery stores could actually reduce competition and harm private grocery store owners. “The plan to have one municipal-owned grocery store in each borough, five in total, is part of a vision of a public option for produce,” he said, adding that for far too many New Yorkers, the cost of groceries were out of reach. He highlighted the importance of reasonable policy experimentation by city government, and added that it would also help eliminate food deserts.

 

For many New Yorkers, they cannot find a grocery store within reach of a few blocks, and yet they can find fast food restaurants just around the corner,” he said. “It’s our job to ensure that we’re meeting that need. It’s not in opposition to grocery store owners or bodega owners. This is something that, together, can actually be used to increase competitiveness, as we’ve seen public options do so in the past.”

 

Asked what he would say to grocery store owners who are concerned that his policy could create a ricochet effect, creating more and more city-owned grocery stores. Mamdani said he had spoken with some and would continue to work with the City’s roughly one thousand grocery store owners. He said he made clear to them that he both recognized and appreciated their work, saying they were a critical part of the city’s communities and 80% are family-owned.

 

“They invested in this city in the ’70s, in a time when many of the larger retailers were leaving, and they did so because they believed in the city, and there’s so much partnership that we can still offer those same stores in assisting them on the skyrocketing rents that they are facing, the questions of insurance, so much of that which creates instability in their business model, while also ensuring we’re using every tool at our disposal to create a more affordable city for New Yorkers.”

 

Norwood News reached out to the City’s SBS (Small Business Services) department for comment on both Mamdani’s criticisms of the current process and those of the Kingsbridge Merchants Association. We will share any feedback we receive.