Most businesses are family-run, he said.

Richmond Hill resident Brian Hatt has experienced the effect of rising hydro rates personally and professionally.

Hatt is known around Richmond Hill for all the many Christmas lights on his house. This year, he had to cut back on the number of Christmas lights he put up.

Hatt‘s customers are dry-cleaners and laundromats across the country. He specializes in laundry equipment for apartment buildings, coin laundry, hospitals, and large laundries. His company Harco is based out of Mississauga.

“Hydro rates will be a challenge over the next several years for many small businesses,” Hatt said.

For the dry-cleaning and laundry industry, they will have to pass the rising fees along to the customer, he said.

With hydro rates rising over the years, landlords have approached Ray Helwig, saying you have to pay us more, said Helwig, chief operating officer of Sparkle Solutions in Vaughan.

His company, which has been in business 36 years, supplies and maintains laundry equipment for multi-residential housing such as apartment buildings, nursing homes, hospitals and prisons across Canada, including in York Region.

This, in turn, rolls over the added cost to the tenant in a quest for more revenue.

With the rising price of hydro, Helwig has seen a lot of buildings, including his own, convert to gas dryers from electric, which is cheaper to run, he said.

But gas appliances can be more costly to maintain, Helwig said. Over the years, about 75 per cent of multi residential buildings have switched to gas, he said.

In his 36 years, Helwig has never seen hydro rates go up so much, he said.