RIGHT SPEAK: Number of Vacant NYC Storefronts Has Nearly Doubled Since the Pandemic: ‘Creating havoc’; Blame Shoplifting Scourge, Blasé Lawmakers for Worst Case of Storefront Vacancies Since COVID, and other C-Virus related stories

Number of vacant NYC storefronts has nearly doubled since the pandemic: ‘Creating havoc’:

Empty retail space in New York City has nearly doubled since the pandemic, according to data released Wednesday — as officials warned the troubling vacant storefronts aren’t going away.

Only 6% of Big Apple storefronts sat empty in 2019, compared to nearly 11.2% this year, statistics from the city Department of Finance show.

“These vacancy issues, I thought they would end when the pandemic ended but it has not. It continues to be a problem,” said Councilmember Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan), whose Upper West Side district has been hit hard by the scourge.

“They are creating havoc because there is homeless, garbage and the business next door hurts,” she added.

During a City Council Committee on Small Business meeting Wednesday, Calvin Brown, deputy commissioner for neighborhood development, blamed “archaic zoning barriers” for retail space going unused for years.

But council members said retail theft and picky landlords are to blame for the troubling trend, too.

The empty storefronts can lead to quality of life issues like garbage and graffiti as well as feelings of unease among residents, Councilmember Oswald Feliz, chair of the Committee on Small Business, said.

“There’s a Walgreens one minute away from where I live that’s closing down due to retail theft,” Feliz (D-Bronx) said. “Anytime I speak to a small business that is literally the very first issue they bring to us.”

A report released last month estimated that shoplifting cost New York state retailers $4.4 billion in 2022 — with the thefts spiking 64% in the Big Apple between June 2019 and June 2023. --->READ MORE HERE

Paul Martinka

Blame shoplifting scourge, blasé lawmakers for worst case of storefront vacancies since COVID:

Vacant storefronts are both a sign and a cause of economic distress — and they’ve nearly doubled in the city since the pandemic.

Per the city Department of Finance, more than 11% of Big Apple storefronts now sit empty, discouraging nearby commerce and attracting disorder.

“They are creating havoc because there is homeless, garbage, and the business next door hurts,” City Councilwoman Gale Brewer, whose Upper West Side district has been hit hard by the vacancies, told The Post.

But her fellow progressives seem pretty clueless about their own responsibility here.

It’s hard to keep a retail shop running when city and state lawmakers micromanage what you have to pay workers and how you can schedule shifts, and even mandate benefits.

Not to mention the high taxes they impose and the get-out-of-jail-free cards they issue to even chronic shoplifters.

Brewer’s colleagues prefer to blame “picky landlords.”

Ha! As The Post’s Steve Cuozzo notes, landlords’ desperation for tenants amid these vacancies has opened the door to the hundreds of illegal cannabis shops sprouting like mushrooms across the city.

Councilman Oswald Feliz, chair of the Committee on Small Business, isn’t oblivious to rampant retail theft as an underlying cause.

“There’s a Walgreens one minute away from where I live that’s closing down due to retail theft,” Feliz (D-Bronx) said. “Anytime I speak to a small business that is literally the very first issue they bring to us.”

Yet city and state lawmakers have worked overtime to hamstring the police, making cops personally liable if an incident goes wrong and “reforming” criminal justice to embolden criminals. --->READ MORE HERE