UNITED TO ADVOCATE FOR THE SURVIVAL OF THE NEW YORK CITY CUSTOM COSTUME INDUSTRY
UNITED TO ADVOCATE FOR THE SURVIVAL OF THE NEW YORK CITY CUSTOM COSTUME INDUSTRY
ALBANY-TAKE ACTION
SUPPORT OF NY STATE BILLS S8473/A10387
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If you are a resident of New York, please consider lending support to a pending bill in the New York State Legislature, S.8473/A10387. This bill, sponsored by State Senator Brad Hoylman and Assembly Member Harvey Epstein, proposes a moratorium on non-payment evictions of small business commercial tenants that lasts through six months following the end of the COVID-19 State of Emergency, and our support could help encourage the Legislature to hold a vote on the bill.
Why is this bill important? Because along with arts and entertainment, the hundreds of New York commercial businesses that support the industry were among the first to shut down and we will be among the last to reopen. We are asking for a pause on evictions to give us time to figure a viable way forward during this unprecedented time.
SAMPLE TEXT FOR SUPPORT OF NY STATE BILLS
S8473 and A10387
As one of your constituents, I’d like to thank you for working on behalf of New Yorkers whose jobs were lost during the Covid-19 pandemic. Thanks to your leadership, many of those jobs will return as New York recovers.
But the costume industry may not.
I am writing as a supporter of the Costume Industry Coalition (CIC), a group of NYC small businesses and artisans that create and supply costumes for the entertainment industry that came together amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. CIC Members transform a Costume Designer’s two dimensional designs into custom, one-of-a-kind costumes for theatre, dance, opera, concerts, theme parks, cruise ships, ice shows, live entertainments and on television and film worldwide. With the entertainment industry shut down, CIC Members were forced to close their doors alongside many of their vendors, colleagues, and collaborators. Hundreds of small businesses remain shuttered for the foreseeable future.
As you know, one out of every eight dollars of economic activity in the city — $110 billion in 2017 — can be traced directly or indirectly to entertainment, accounting for a whopping 13% of the city’s economic output. If the entertainment ecosystem--of which the CIC is a major part--does not survive, the economic impact will be catastrophic.
The CIC, along with their affiliated vendors primarily located in the historic Garment District, is asking you to support State Bill S8473 and Assembly Bill 10387, sponsored by Sen. Brad Hoylman and Assemblyman Harvey Epstein. S8473/A10387 amend the Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law to provide that no default in the payment of rent due or judgment of possession shall be entered against a tenant who is a small business between March 7, 2020 and a date six months after the expiration of the state disaster emergency. This bill could make the difference between hundreds of local small businesses staying afloat or closing forever. Without them, jobs that support hundreds of families, many of whom are immigrants, would be lost along with the millions of dollars they collectively inject into the local economy.
Please protect the costume industry, these families, and their contributions to New York’s cultural and economic recovery. Pass S8473/A10387 and provide small businesses all over New York with the security they need to survive this pandemic.
Thank you,