February 26, 2013 meeting of food manufacturers. Image Courtesy: Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce.
Work space, affordable insurance, and information access among chief concerns of small Brooklyn food and beverage manufacturers. On February 26, 2013, the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce and Council Member Stephen Levin hosted an event for local food and beverage manufacturing businesses at the Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The organizers sought to give Brooklyn entrepreneurs a chance to raise issues related to starting and growing a successful food-based small business. Organizers hoped to take the ideas generated from the event and help make Brooklyn a top food manufacturing industry location. Over 70 attendees participated in the event, which also provided small businesses an opportunity to network and showcase their products. Attendees sat at 10-person tables and were encouraged to talk through the common pitfalls and problems of starting and maintaining a food manufacturing business in Brooklyn, as well as brainstorm solutions. Attendees were instructed to present the highlights of the small group sessions with the rest of the room at the end of the meeting.
Attendees represented a wide variety of experience and products, such as Salty Road, a salt water taffy maker; The Brooklyn Kitchen, a Williamsburg kitchen supply store and educational facility; Industry City Distillery, a Sunset Park vodka distillery; and the Coalition for the Improvement of Bedford-Stuyvesant, an organization focused on the economic and social advancement of the Bed-Stuy community.
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Diagram of what could be allowed through the Open Storefront Program. Image Credit: Mayor’s Office
The program provides expanded space for businesses to safely operate during the pandemic. On December 29, 2020, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the Open Storefronts Program would be extended through September 30, 2021. The Open Storefronts Program allows storefront businesses to use a portion of the sidewalk to display merchandise, complete transactions, sell goods and provide queuing areas to provide businesses with more space to expand and safely operate throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The program will also be expanded to allow businesses to sell prepackaged food on sidewalks and allow restaurants to use sidewalks for take-out orders.
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Governor Andrew Cuomo providing details about changes to COVID-19 guidance and restrictions on December 11, 2020. Image Credit: Mike Groll/Office of Governor Andrew Cuomo
Indoor dining will be suspended in New York City while gyms and salons can operate on new guidelines. On December 11, 2020, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced changes to COVID restriction guidelines starting Monday, December 14th. Among these changes, indoor dining would be suspended across New York City due to the increase in COVID-19 hospitalization rates. Outdoor dining and takeout/delivery are still permitted. Indoor dining will be allowed to continue at only 25 percent capacity across the rest of the state. (more…)
Heat Seek, winner of the NYC[x] Co-Labs Housing Rights Challenge, operates by using sensors around the apartment or home to detect the temperature. The sensors and temperature logs help provide proof that a landlord or property owner is not providing legally required heating to tenants. Image Credit: Heat Seek, www.heatseek.org/explore-the-tech
On November 12, 2020, the New York Mayor’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, the New York City Economic Development Corporation, the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the NYC Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, and the communities of Inwood and Washington Heights announced the winners and the honorable mentions for the NYC[x] Co-Labs Housing Rights Challenge. This challenge invited innovative and tech-enabled solutions to address the housing rights of New York City’s most vulnerable communities. Submissions were solicited from startups, technologists, and innovators from across the globe. To read more about the competition, click
here. The winners of the Housing Rights Challenge are
Heat Seek and
Justfix.nyc with an honorable mention going to
3×3. (more…)
Diagram of what could be allowed through the Open Storefront Program. Image Credit: Mayor’s Office
The program is aimed to help provide more opportunities to shop safely. On October 28, 2020, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the Open Storefronts program. Building on the success of the Mayor’s Open Restaurants and Open Streets program, Open Storefronts will provide safe spaces for small businesses to conduct business in the challenging economic environment while advancing Mayor de Blasio’s Recovery Agenda.
The program is expected to impact 40,000 businesses and support over 450,000 employees while providing customers with an additional option to shop in-person and locally ahead of the holiday shopping season. The Open Storefronts program began on October 30, 2020 and is set to run until December 31, 2020. (more…)
