As sure as the first robin of spring, you can bet your ballot box that a new mayor will promptly roll out a plan to slash red tape and make life easier for the city’s struggling small businesses and neighborhood entrepreneurs.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot today rolled out her version.

Under Lightfoot’s “landmark program,” as the city dubbed it in a press release, the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection will establish five new regional small business centers to assist restaurants, bars, stores and other businesses with licensing issues. That means owners no longer will have to travel downtown to City Hall to work things out.



“No business should have to come all the way to City Hall for support nor wait months for permits they deserve,” Lightfoot said in a statement. “With these reforms, the city is coming directly to (businesses) and our communities to ensure local business owners and entrepreneurs have the resources they need to thrive.”

The city says the five centers “will be established in the next year," but won't know where until formally requesting input from local community groups about possibly partnering up on the project.

Beyond the centers, the city will also make it a little easier for some businesses to get official approval to hang some signs, a notorious bottleneck through the years.

Specifically, proprietors will be able to apply for a sign at the same time they apply for their general business license(s). The city says that should shave “several months” off the process. However, only ground-floor signs no larger than 16 square feet (4 by 4 foot) will be eligible, the sign cannot extend over the public way and “must be located on the interior of a ground-floor window without dynamic imaging flashing or video display and, if electronically hand-wired, the sign will still need” a separate electrical permit.

Elliott Richardson, president of the Small Business Advocacy Council, welcomed the news. "For too, long, small businesses have had to wait months for a sign permit before they could tell their neighbors that they were open for business," he said in a statement. "The Fast-Track Business Sign program will cut through red tape and make it easier for a new business to get started."