By Forum Staff
Mayor Eric Adams and City Department of Small Business Services Commissioner Dynishal Gross on Thursday announced a package of initiatives designed to help entrepreneurs start, operate, and grow their businesses even further.
“Small Business Forward 2.0” will be an update to the successful “Small Business Forward” initiative, launched in the first week of the Adams administration, to bring together cross-agency experts to identify reforms that promote entrepreneurship, support existing small businesses, and encourage the formation of new small businesses.To reduce burdens on restaurants, Adams announced the City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is modifying its notification procedure to give restaurants enough time to review their practices, take any steps needed to make improvements, and meet the highest food safety standards for New Yorkers — ensuring business owners have predictability when interacting with city agencies and are meeting their requirements. Additionally, Adams announced that applications are now open for the “NYC Future Fund,” the City’s first revenue-based loan program designed to help businesses weather fluctuations in revenue throughout the year and boost their growth.
To develop Small Business Forward 2.0, Adams has charged Deputy Mayor for Housing, Economic Development, and Workforce Adolfo Carrion, Jr., Mayor’s Office of Operations Director Daniel Steinberg, and SBS Commissioner Gross with identifying reforms to existing business regulations that promote entrepreneurship, helping existing small businesses get access to financing and other resources, and encouraging new small business formation. During the next three months, the FDNY, the City Department of Buildings, the City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, the City Department of Environmental Protection, the City Department of Transportation, and DOHMH will review existing business regulations with the goal of reducing fine schedules and allowing for cure periods or warnings for first-time violations; the effort will culminate in a report this September. The city will implement identified reforms through agency rulemaking, operational changes, and legislative advocacy.
The additional reforms to business regulations will build on the success of other initiatives taken by the Adams administration that have led to record numbers of private-sector jobs and record small-business formation, including SBS’s NYC BEST program. Since 2022, the initial Small Business Forward reforms, NYC BEST, and a one-time liquor license fee suspension have saved businesses over $50 million in fines and fees.
Small Business Forward 2.0 comes as the city celebrated its third annual New York City Small Business Month, observed each May since 2023, and as the city has reached a new milestone of over 183,000 small businesses in operation, with one in five having opened during the Adams administration. Amid growing pressures on small businesses and broader economic uncertainty, Mayor Adams’ updated plan will cut red tape, expand access to flexible and innovative financing, and build on his historic effort to reset the relationship between city government and small businesses across all five boroughs.
To help restaurant owners achieve the highest level of compliance with health and safety, restaurants will now receive two emails notifying them that their restaurant will undergo an inspection. The first email will be sent one to five months prior to the inspection, and a second notice will be sent three to six weeks in advance of the inspection. These notifications will include information and resources for restaurants to make improvements and a list of everything a health inspector will look for so that restaurants can ‘self-inspect’ and make improvements immediately to better serve customers. The notices will also refer businesses to the “NYC Business Express Service Team” (NYC BEST), which provides free, one-on-one compliance education in advance of inspections and helps businesses better understand city rules to save time and money, as well as avoid fines.
For the past three years, Adams’ Small Business Advisory Commission has served as a formal platform for small business leaders and business-serving organizations to elevate concerns about the city’s regulatory environment directly to the administration. The latest report on the commission’s accomplishments can be found online.
Starting in the fall 2025, key regulatory agencies will deliver annual presentations at Small Business Advisory Commission meetings to share upcoming legislative and regulatory changes that may impact small businesses. These sessions will be designed to gather direct feedback and inform agency policies and outreach strategies. SBS is actively seeking nominations for business owners or community-based organizations to be members of the commission.
In 2024, at the first-ever New York City Small Business Month Expo, Adams announced the launch of the “NYC Future Fund,” the city’s first revenue-based loan designed to help businesses weather fluctuations in revenue throughout the year and boost their growth. Based on a percentage of monthly revenue instead of fixed payments, loan payments increase when revenue is high and decrease when revenue is low. Loans of up to $500,000 are available for business owners to use for working capital, inventory, marketing, hiring, materials, and more. The fund will accelerate the growth of hundreds of new small businesses in New York City by addressing the gap in access to affordable capital faced by small business owners, particularly early-stage businesses, as well as Black, indigenous, and people of color and women entrepreneurs that otherwise often cannot obtain traditional bank financing. Eligible businesses can apply now.
“One of the first things we accomplished when we took office was to announce a package of reforms to cut red tape for small business owners who were struggling from the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, we have supported a record 183,000 small businesses and facilitated over $300 million in financing to small businesses — allowing us to create a strong economic and business environment that has broken the all-time jobs record 11 times,” Adams said. “Today, we are building on this solid foundation with ‘Small Business Forward 2.0,’ an updated plan that will continue to find areas to cut red tape and ways to make it easier to have a thriving business in New York City. And with new, common-sense reforms to the health inspection process, we are giving our restaurants the predictability and clarity to navigate government bureaucracy and ensure they are able to do everything they can to comply with the highest health and safety standards. Every day, we are working to make New York City safer and more affordable, and the unprecedented steps we’ve taken to help our small business community thrive helps us continue to achieve these goals.”
