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Steve Behar is an attorney to small and medium sized businesses and is an owner of a small business himself. In addition, before receiving his two law degrees, Steve received a Masters in Business Administration in finance and management. Steve understands the difficulties small business owners face everyday. He also understands the extraordinary contributions small businesses make to our economy and how many jobs small businesses create in our community.


New York City and New York State have not created an environment that fosters the creation and growth of small businesses. Once elected to the New York City Council, Steve will ensure that while necessary regulatory issues such as health and the environment are protected, New York City will advance the creation of new small businesses and jobs by eliminating unnecessary burdens currently placed upon small business owners. New York City must address issues such as overburdening regulations, poor traffic and parking conditions, poor mass transit opportunities, complicated licensing procedures, unresponsive city agencies and other unnecessary burdens placed on entrepreneurs seeking to start or manage small businesses.


In our district in Northeast Queens, the effects are visible to anyone who walks in one of our shopping districts. There are a tremendous number of vacant storefronts in Bayside, College Point, Whitestone, Little Neck and Douglaston. We need to work together to determine how our business owners, landlords and residents can work together to once again grow our neighborhood businesses. Business owners in our district have specifically pointed to poor parking conditions and burdensome licensing requirements as issues that need to be addressed. New York City also needs to provide assistance and incentives that lead to the creation of new small businesses and jobs. New York State should also address the same issues. For instance, each new limited liability company (LLC) registered with New York State is required to publish the fact that the LLC has been formed in two newspapers for six weeks each. While the filing fee to register a new LLC is only $200, the required publication can add $1500 or more to the cost of starting a new business. Meanwhile, the information required to be published in the newspapers is already published on the website of the New York State Secretary of State. In the 21st century and the internet, publishing this information in two newspapers serves absolutely no purpose other than to line the pockets of newspaper publishers. This section of the New York State LLC Act is simply corporate welfare for the newspaper industry. Once elected to the New York City Council, Steve will pass a resolution asking the legislature in Albany to immediately jump into the 21st century and remove this corporate welfare and added burden to small businesses state-wide.


Finally, in recognition of the importance of small businesses to our community, once elected, Steve will convene a “Small Business Town Hall” in the district to bring together small business owners, landlords and the residents of the district together to determine a path to once again have a thriving small business community in Northeast Queens.