Mayor de Blasio Announces Citywide “Buy Local” Effort to Help Small Businesses

By Yehudit Garmaise

     Just as Boro Park has launched its own “Shop Local” campaign, Mayor Bill de Blasio this morning announced “Shop Your City,” which is a citywide campaign in which the mayor asks all New Yorkers to do all their shopping in their neighborhoods. 

   When consumers shop local, it makes a huge difference to small business owners, the mayor said this morning at his daily press conference.

  “People are constantly asking me, ‘What will help [the economy?]” the mayor said. “’They ask, ‘What can I do?’ 

  The answer: “Shop Local.”

   “I am asking you to do something that is so simple, but so powerful…I am going to ask you to not do things the way that so many people have gotten used to, which is going online, but instead to shop at your local businesses.”

   Although the mayor mentioned that, “Some businesses can sell online too, and that is great,” one way that the city's Small Businesses Services (SBS) could further assist small business owners, considering the specter of future lockdowns, would be to provide owners with services to create web sites, so that customers can continue shopping online for everything they need. 

   In addition to encouraging all New Yorkers to shop in actual brick and mortar stores, SBS Commissioner Jonnel Doris said this morning that in order to gather more information about what small business owners in the city need, he is taking the “Shop Your City” campaign on the road.

   Starting this Saturday, hopefully not in Boro Park because most of the stores will be closed, Doris is launching his five-borough tour to “make sure [small businesses] have the resources they need, they get, to get them back on their feet,” Doris said, who thanked the 240,000 small businesses in the city for their innovation, commitment, hard work, and creativity during the coronavirus crisis.

   “We will continue to help them every step of the way to make it easier, faster, and better to do business in the city of New York,” said Doris, who said the SBS has delivered over 108,000 services to small businesses in New York City.

   “These winter shopping months can be life or death [for small business owners,” the mayor said. “[Small businesses] might break even…or not. Together we can redirect our resources to keep our dollars circulating in our communities and to find what we are looking for in our diverse local businesses. 

   “Shop Your City encourages New Yorkers to spend their hard-earned dollars locally.”