From the sustainable café or specialty pet store in the Castro, to the farmer’s market in Noe Valley or the family-friendly restaurant in Glen Park, unique businesses define our neighborhoods and make San Francisco the City we love. We made history by creating Healthy San Francisco and providing Livable Wages; which, with the economy, has made it difficult for small business. The promotion of events like Dine About Town, Farmer’s Markets, Saturday Open Markets should be used to raise money for non-profits, drive traffic to local businesses, and buy local. By cultivating relationships with successful businesses, we can fill vacant storefronts. Overall, we need to create an atmosphere that enables brick-and-mortar, Internet, and mobile-vending operations to thrive.

Our campaign organized an event called Carrotmob to demonstrate our support of small business. Carrotmob is the opposite of a boycott. Instead of punishing companies for doing bad things, Carrotmob rewards businesses for doing good things. Bernies, a local cafe on 24th Street, pledged to give back 40% of her profits towards investing in her store. We had to turn out the mob of people to buy coffee. In three short hours, we increased the number of sales seven times and more than quadrupled profits. In fact, Bernie made more in those three hours than she usually does in an entire Sunday – and 40% of those profits will be reinvested back into her business specifically to make the shop greener and more energy efficient. And we introduced new people to shop, eat, and buy local on 24th Street.

Besides Carrotmob, here are some of the ways we can promote small business so that our neighborhoods, our neighbors, and our overall City economy will prosper:

Fill All Vacant Storefronts!
Small business is imperative to District 8’s vitality. Encouraging new businesses to open in District 8 will increase foot traffic, helping existing neighborhood stalwarts, such as Toast on 24th Street or Cliff’s Variety Store on Castro Street. The corner markets, the popular coffeehouses, the endearing mom-and-pop stores provide jobs, contribute revenue, and add character to our neighborhoods. But these same businesses live or die by small profit margins. Therefore, we need to work together to do all we can to keep them in business. We will work with successful small business on expansion efforts, and create an environment where we can all thrive.

Streamline Processes and Strive for Efficiency:
San Francisco requires businesses to comply with nearly 200 different permits. These are among the expensive and time-consuming processes that discourage new businesses from moving into our neighborhoods and contributing to our local economy. Let’s look at ways we can operate more efficiently.

• Enable business owners to retrieve all permits at one location and establish an online system.
• Allow small businesses to receive one bill for all the permits and pay it at one time, or allow for monthly payments (amortized over the year).
• Fully fund the City’s Office of Small Business (OSB). The OSB’s Small Business Assistance Center functions as the City’s central point of information and referral for entrepreneurs and small businesses located in San Francisco, providing one-on-one case management.

Create Incentives for Working with Local Businesses:
The City spends millions of dollars every year in contracting. However, we don’t practice what we preach by buying local. Few city departments, if any, spend more than 50% of their budgets within City limits. We also have room to grow with our Green Business Program. Here are some of the suggestions we found:

• Award San Francisco businesses with “points” in the City’s contracting process. They are already paying roughly 20% more for doing business in the City, compared to costs in outlying areas, and we need to encourage them to stay here.
• Investigate the possibility of requiring City departments to direct business to San Francisco businesses.
• Expand the City’s Green Business Program, which offers free hands-on support, training, and technical assistance to local businesses, ensuring that businesses meet stringent environmental standards.