You are reading

Small Business Owners in Queens Rally for More Support from Legislators Amid COVID-19 Restrictions

Local business owners came together on the steps of City Hall Wednesday to rally for more financial help (Courtesy of Queens Together)

July 30, 2020 By Allie Griffin

A group of small business owners from across the borough came together on the steps of Queens Borough Hall Wednesday to demand more financial help from legislators as they try to keep their businesses afloat amid the pandemic.

The mom-and-pop shop owners are struggling to pay their rent from being shuttered during the worst of COVID-19. Many are in need of immediate financial relief–with their bills continuing to pile up.

The store owners are calling for help from legislators as they try to survive while conforming with the state’s COVID-19 safety requirements. They also warn that if they go out of business, many local people will also lose their jobs.

“Help me,” Katch Astoria co-owner Roseann McSorley said, appealing directly to Governor Andrew Cuomo. “We aren’t struggling only with our store rents, we are also struggling with our own home rents and costs of raising our families.”

Council Member Donovan Richards — the all but confirmed Democratic nominee for Queens Borough President — also spoke at the rally.

He said local business owners deserve grants from the government. They don’t want loans from the government, he said, that will put them in more debt.

“We want grants for our small businesses to stay open,” Richards said. “We don’t want them drowning in debt for the next 30 or 40 years.”

The Wednesday rally was organized by the small business advocacy group Queens Together, which sprung up at the height of the pandemic in New York City.

Jaime-Faye Bean, co-founder of Queens Together, said the city and state’s relief efforts have not reached most mom-and-pops in the borough.

The group is advocating for immediate commercial rent relief as well as disaster grants and loans.

Queens Together also wants a permanent cap on third-party app delivery fees, such as Seamless and Grubhub that hurt small restaurants. The current cap is only on a temporary basis.

Several businesses in Queens — both new and long-standing — have already shut their doors permanently due to the financial burden of the coronavirus pandemic.

McSorley, the owner of Katch Astoria, urged the state to provide more help so that more do not close.

“Kill the virus, not the businesses in Queens,” she said.

email the author: news@queenspost.com
No comments yet

Leave a Comment
Reply to this Comment

All comments are subject to moderation before being posted.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Recent News

Fresh Meadows MS-13 gang associate sentenced to nearly a half-century in prison for murder of Corona teen in Kissena Park: Feds

An MS-13 gang associate from Fresh Meadows was sentenced to 45 years in federal prison on Tuesday, Aug. 26, for the 2018 slaying of a Corona teenager in Flushing’s Kissena Park.

Juan Amaya-Ramirez, 27, and his co-defendant Oscar Flores-Mejia, 25, from Elmhurst, who is also an associate of the transnational criminal organization, pleaded guilty to the murder of 17-year-old Andy Peralta in Brooklyn federal court last September.

Plant Powered Metro NY helps reverse chronic illness with food and community

Aug. 28, 2025 By Jessica Militello

When Northern Queens resident Sherika Sterling discovered Plant Powered Metro NY’s Jumpstart program, she was struggling with a list of health issues that she thought she would have to deal with her entire life. After joining the program and changing to a plant-based diet, she was able to reverse many of her chronic ailments, including being pre-diabetic, after being equipped with practical tools, knowledge and plant-based recipes.

AG’s office launches investigation into death of man run over by police officer in Flushing Meadows Corona Park

The New York Attorney General’s Office of Special Investigations (OSI) has launched a probe into the death of a civilian on Saturday, Aug. 23, following a motor vehicle collision involving NYPD officers in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

At approximately 4:37 p.m., an NYPD officer from the 110th Precinct in Elmhurst was driving westbound in a marked police cruiser, a 2015 Ford Taurus, at around 10 miles per hour in front of the Queens Theater on United Nations Avenue South, across from the Unisphere, when the vehicle ran over a man who was allegedly lying face up on the roadway prior to the collision, police said.