Amy DeBiase made $3.00 the weekend before last She kept her Jay Street shop, Bless Gift and Home Décor, open all day Saturday and Sunday. ... She works seven days a week. The item she sold was a picture frame; with her markup, she netted $3.00.
I want to be happy ... I don't want to move ...But I don't know how much longer I can keep going here. I've spent the last several months considering closing my shop. I've sat here for four years watching things, and each year it's been a little worse.
DeBiase hates hearing from people that downtown stores are never open late, because every time she has stayed open late, no one has come. ... I pissed away an entire weekend away from my kids and family to sell a $6.00 item. ... I spent two days with lights on wasting my life to make $3.00
Oh yes, this is "the renaissance" ROFLMAO
Quoted Text
The line felt like a slap I the face to Lance and Mike Casey, owners of Zaria & Bella's... that operated on Jay Street for three years. "There are so many people that walk by and don't even look up," said Lance Casey. City officials walk by my store every day, and not once have they come in."
After three years of trying to make their gift shop work in downtown, the Casey's called it quits a few weeks ago and moved....Comnecticut.
The guy that owns Experience was interviewed too. But remember he's not right in the "heart" of downtown, and that is clearly not a retail business in the classic sense, in my opinion, you have a need for interior decorator if you have lots of money and you'll look them up on line and stuff, and really the place looks pretty when you drive by. But let's face it, the people in Schenectady CANNOT AFFORD Experience, hecll, they can't afford to hire ANY interior decorator.
In a paragraph referencing metroplex, then there is this in the story.
Quoted Text
But the premise that Schenectady doesn't care as much about its small business is a feeling shared by other small retailers who say economic development officials only care about reeling in big fish with lures of special tax incentives and grants
I'm sure that each and every one who reads that is more than willing to quote DV and say it's ACTUAL, UNAVOIDABLE, INCONTROVERTIBLE TRUTH
Long time downtown TAXPAYING businesses have closed. Smaller businesses downtown are closing up completely or fleeing the city. And the city/co/plex dems only want to rub elbows with their millionaires, they steal money from the financially struggling homeowners (including under thread of seizing the homes) and give the money to their millionaire and billionaire cronies; and most believe their are kickbacks involved.
So what are the dems doing for this financially struggling business owner who made just a pittance of $3.00 in a weekend?
So look the city dems snub the small business owners, walk right past their jobs, enroute to the businesses of their millionaire and billionaire cronies
And DV says it's oh so wonderful downtown, With all the businesses closing downtown and falling sales tax revenue, and the neighborhoods becoming ghost towns, it's going to get to the point that there will be no one left to pay the taxes of the millionaires and billionaires, then where is the city going to get money to operate and exist?
IF these tax exemptions are only temporary as some people claim, then we intelligent people know what will happen when the expiration dates arrive, they aren't going to pay taxes, they will close up too!
What a JOKE this city and it's current leadership is!
Optimists close their eyes and pretend problems are non existent. Better to have open eyes, see the truths, acknowledge the negatives, and speak up for the people rather than the politicos and their rich cronies.
I think we'll have to start posting photos of the downtown businesses closing, in the same way as the empty and/or boarded up businesses and houses in the neighborhoods!
Optimists close their eyes and pretend problems are non existent. Better to have open eyes, see the truths, acknowledge the negatives, and speak up for the people rather than the politicos and their rich cronies.
... I pissed away an entire weekend away from my kids and family to sell a $6.00 item. ...
WHOO WHOO! That's a WHOPPING 48 cents in sales tax! OH CHEER CHERR
Optimists close their eyes and pretend problems are non existent. Better to have open eyes, see the truths, acknowledge the negatives, and speak up for the people rather than the politicos and their rich cronies.
I drove through downtown Gloversville, Johnstown, Scotia, Albany and Schenectady today. The best looking downtown by far was Schdy!
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
I drove through downtown Gloversville, Johnstown, Scotia, Albany and Schenectady today. The best looking downtown by far was Schdy!
Absolutely agree, the (approximately) 4 block area does look very nice. I am downtown a fair amount, and have been spending more money there than say 5 years ago.
However the purpose of Metroplex was not to make it look nice, but to reduce the tax burden on the residents of Schenectady. It has not done that.
Incentives clearly were needed to get people to invest downtown. But the MASSIVE giveaways were probably 4-5x more than what could realistically be sustained. We spent what $100MM, and we still have TONS AND TONS of potholes, people abandoning their homes because of taxes, and a really pretty downtown.
My god the pothole situation is absolutely ridiculous. Half the streets seem to have places where there are 5" deep potholes around 12" in diameter... And it's been WEEKS now that the weather has been warm enough to fix.
A pretty 4-5 block downtown area isn't going to save this city.
However the purpose of Metroplex was not to make it look nice, but to reduce the tax burden on the residents of Schenectady. It has not done that.
.... A pretty 4-5 block downtown area isn't going to save this city.
You have said it in a nutshell.
And the cheerleaders for downtown REFUSE to state what the taxpayers have gotten in return for their drastically increased taxes! We don't hear a peep out of the cheerleaders to answer that question!
Optimists close their eyes and pretend problems are non existent. Better to have open eyes, see the truths, acknowledge the negatives, and speak up for the people rather than the politicos and their rich cronies.
He'll probably say that they had a poor business model and it didn't fit in with the clientele. We've heard it before, excuse after excuse.
Really, truthfully, I could care less what HE thinks. Somewhere, a two villages lost their idiots, and we were blessed with both Cissy and DVOR
We are advised NOT to judge ALL Muslims by the actions of a few lunatics, but we are encouraged to judge ALL gun owners by the actions of a few lunatics. Funny how that works.
He'll probably say that they had a poor business model and it didn't fit in with the clientele. We've heard it before, excuse after excuse.
Really, truthfully, I could care less what HE thinks. Somewhere, a two villages lost their idiots, and we were blessed with both Cissy and DVOR
You apparently do NOT understand how a business operates. It either appeals to customers or it does not. If it appeals to customers then it will succeed. If it does not then it will not.
The FACT is that Downtown Schenectady is doing better today than it was 10 years ago when the Boob Farley-Jurzynski regime was running Schenectady into the ground. Back then the only person selling anything downtown was the police chief and his wife -- and that stuff was illegal.
George Amedore & Christian Klueg for NYS Senate 2016 Pete Vroman for State Assembly 2016[/size][/color]
"For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest that is sleeping in the unplowed ground." Lyndon Baines Johnson
Quoted from Democratic Voice of absolutely no business experience, preached the following jibberish:
You apparently do NOT understand how a business operates. It either appeals to customers or it does not. If it appeals to customers then it will succeed. If it does not then it will not. .
You,
the know it all,
with absolutely no business experience,
are the one who does not understand reality.
The businesses that fail, are failing, because they can't compete with corporate welfare whores, who pay no taxes and take bribes to come here and crush our small businesses out of existence.
Morettes would not be closing if they got the same deal as Johnny's.
Stop blaming the victims of corporate welfare and nepotism.
Bright shiny businesses that pay no taxes and take corporate welfare by the millions is not what I would describe as "doing better" than the taxpaying small businesses that they drove out.
Looks better is a term I would agree with.
Anything you dump $200 million into will look better.
The financial pros and cons is another story altogether.
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