I know what it means to be saddled with endless and redundant laws and regulations that can only hurt the most vulnerable. Recently, my organization, Creating Justice LA, decided to purchase the Skid Row People’s Market to expand our reach into the food systems in the Skid Row community. The Market serves as a reliable place for healthy, affordable food options and community in an area with no grocery stores where many are food insecure. The Market keeps jobs in the community, creating a holistic approach to health and healing.
As the new owners of this L.A. institution, we are working hard to effectively serve the surrounding community but may not be able to get it done due to burdensome regulations that are not designed to help those that need it the most. To help our community, we need to take hold of our future. At Creating Justice LA, that has meant cooperating with community leaders and finding sensible solutions to the difficult challenges of our time.
Working with local agencies
The Market will allow us to better serve Skid Row, but California’s small business regulations have made it a challenge to stay afloat while meeting the needs of our community. When it comes to support, the State Legislature and the Governor seem to be focused on massive companies that do not represent the state’s working population.
I am proud to lead the Creating Justice Peace and Healing Center, a community-led space on Los Angeles’ Skid Row where service, acceptance and inclusion are our core values. The center focuses on ensuring that members of our community have strong advocates for what is sensible and right when it comes to issues of the environment, economic injustice, and social healing.
Our member-led co-ops thrive because we work collaboratively with local agencies and community activists. In our own way, we have created powerful methods to help our community, which has included finding compromises with local leaders to help those in need. We believe that the focus we put on making sensible, thoughtful decisions that benefit our community will help to provide equal opportunity and economic justice to all Californians.
Two examples of this are The Hip Hop Smoothie Shop and Skid Row Coffee, which we created to serve as employment and entrepreneurship incubators that also provide residents with affordable, nutritious food and drink options in a community where those options are both hard to find and much needed.
Policies need to help small businesses
Larger companies with more ample resources are better positioned to either absorb the impact of policies that raise costs or even change the rules on a dime. If they can’t, they simply move operations outside the state. While there is a need for regulations to protect employees, consumers and the environment, they must be well thought-out, reasonable, and helpful to small businesses rather than hurtful.
For example, the Los Angeles City Council is eyeing a potential ban of plastic water bottles which could exacerbate existing water quality and safety issues in the city. Working on Skid Row, I can tell you that plastic water bottles are a safe, accessible, consistent source of water that is essential for serving the unhoused. A ban like this could make clean water much more expensive and much less accessible for the thousands of folks that we serve.
At the state level, SB 54, or the Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act, aims to reduce California’s annual waste by requiring that all single-use packaging must be recyclable or compostable by 2032. Nearly every business in California is likely to be impacted directly or indirectly by SB 54. Whether the impact on small businesses is negative or positive will depend on how it’s implemented, meaning that state and local policymakers have an opportunity and responsibility to work in community with small business owners to be sure they achieve SB 54’s environmental objectives without harming the small business environment or the communities that rely on them.
Business regulations in California are well-intentioned but misguided, and they have drastic consequences for small businesses and their surrounding communities. California’s small businesses need smart, balanced policy solutions to continue as forces of economic and social development.
Pastor Stephen “Cue” Jn-Marie is a prominent community and faith leader in Los Angeles. Cue is the Pastor and founder of The Row LA – “The Church Without Walls” founded in 2006, in Downtown Los Angeles’ Skid Row community. Pastor Cue is also a faith-rooted organizer with Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE), since 2015 and is co-lead organizer of the Black Jewish Justice Alliance (BJJA) as well as Co-convener of the Black and Brown Clergy and Community coalition. He has been featured in several publications, including the Los Angeles Times, PBS SoCal, Downtown Los Angeles Weekly and ABC7.
