Carolyn Sandler wouldn’t classify herself as a small business owner. Her Parkdale tattoo parlour, Makara Tattoo Shop, is smaller than that.

Sandler classifies the shop as more of a micro-business. Alongside 11 other women-led micro-businesses in Parkdale, Sandler is calling for a commercial rent freeze that could free up resources and help them survive the closures forced by COVID-19.

Watching Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announcing a bailout package aimed at helping small businesses endure the current economic freeze, Sandler realized she didn’t see herself represented in the plan.

“I didn’t feel like I was seen as … a microbusiness business owner. I can’t even say small business because we’re just so tiny,” she told the Star Thursday. While Trudeau announced an expanded small-business loan package Thursday morning that would offer relief for businesses with a payroll between $20,000 and $1.5 million, that still doesn’t stretch far enough to offer Sandler and others like her relief.

Trudeau also says a program is coming to help businesses cover rents for at least three months, but the details will need to be worked out with the provinces and territories.

“I felt like what (Trudeau) was talking about in terms of health and relief for the small businesses didn’t include what I was doing with my life in terms of my business,” she said, speculating that without support she would be able to hang on for only a month or two more.

Knowing there were other female-identifying store owners in her neighbourhood that were in the same boat, Sandler got to work organizing. “I knew in Parkdale, there is a very, very strong community of female-identifying business owners,” she said. “It’s like everybody that I know that owns a small shop is female-identifying.”

Taking a “strength in numbers” approach, the collective has teamed up to advocate for rent relief for smaller microbusinesses. They will be submitting an open letter to get the message out that there are many businesses left behind by federal plans.

Bhutila Karpoche, MPP Parkdale—High Park, explained that the provincial NDP has put out a plan called “Save Mainstreet” in hopes of preserving small businesses at risk of closing. The plan calls for a 75 per cent commercial rent subsidy, up to $10,000 per month for the next three months, as well as a freeze in utility payments, a grace period for auto insurance, and a designated emergency fund for small businesses and entrepreneurs who have traditionally faced historic barriers in accessing capital, Karpoche said.

Karpoche said it was “really awful” to hear that Sandler and businesses like hers didn’t qualify for the support they needed. “The option for them was to basically shut down or go into deeper debt by taking loans, which they were not in a position to do,” she said. “There are so many businesses that are so worried about how are they going to survive, because they’re not able to make rent. And so I think it’s very important that we provide supports now.”

For Sandler, the small businesses that line the west-end neighbourhood are what make Parkdale “fantastic.” Preserving shops like hers would help to keep the neighbourhood unique. “We’re not riddled with H&M and Starbucks and big box stores. We’re these really tiny mom-and-pop shops that everybody knows everybody. … It’s very community driven.”

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