Local Businesses 

Key Takeaways: 

• Benefits

  • Increased discounts for students.

  • Increased business and profit for local businesses.

  • Support for our local businesses.

• Implementation

  • Contact and get deals with local businesses.

  • Create a master list of all the businesses in the area that has student discounts.

  • Announce when deals/discounts are acquired. 

• Challenges

  • Certain businesses will not be very open to the idea of having discounts for students as it may take away potential profits.

  • Some are larger chain restaurants that may be difficult to negotiate with. 

• Solutions

  • We will do our best to communicate with these businesses and address the benefits that will come with our partnership.

  • Even if some businesses disagree, there will still be many businesses that we will establish discounts with.

Background

          As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses have experienced a significant decrease in the amount of foot traffic and, therefore, a reduction in their profits. Many of the businesses in Tribeca, such as food cart vendors or bodegas, are small and rely heavily on daily profits. These local establishments help create and strengthen the community in which Stuyvesant prospers. Unfortunately, small businesses will face the blunt end of the economic damages that COVID-19 has created. To play our part in the community, we want to help these establishments on their road to recovery by partnering with them to secure discounts for Stuyvesant students. We believe that our efforts will help increase foot traffic for these businesses and help our community recover.

Research

          The goal of the Local Businesses policy is to create new discounts for students while supporting our local establishments. Although there is already a variety of discounts available for students through StuyVantage, implemented by the Student Union of 2019,  there are still many establishments that do not offer any discounts. We plan to contact and partner with as many businesses as possible to increase the number of establishments with discounts. 

Benefits

          The partnerships that we aim to create during our time in office are meant not only to benefit the student body but also to benefit the partnered businesses. Although we are aware that it is not our responsibility to restore the complex economy of our city, we know that it is part of our responsibility to support our community. We firmly believe that we must play our part by assisting and aiding our fellow members of the Tribeca Community. We plan to encourage students to visit valued businesses to increase the flow of customers throughout the day. These added customers will help the local businesses recover from the effects of the pandemic, and in the end, create a mutually beneficial relationship between the establishments and the students. 

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Implementation

          To acquire discounts for the student body, we plan to contact all the businesses within the Tribeca area. To accomplish this, our finance and external outreach teams will work together to contact our local establishments. Once we get in contact with these establishments, we will explain how our policy will benefit both parties and encourage them to work with us. When we acquire the discounts, we will formulate a list of all discounts available to students and share it with the entire school. New discounts will be announced via our newsletter as well added to the list of businesses with discounts.

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Challenges

          The Tribeca area is very resilient, but we feel an obligation to play our part in strengthening our community. Although we will try our best to establish as many partnerships as possible, we will inevitably hit roadblocks along the way. We must anticipate businesses not wanting to work with us due to various reasons. Another challenge is the fact that large chain restaurants, such as McDonald’s and Subway, may not be open to negotiations with our caucus.  However, we believe that we have realistic expectations and solutions to these challenges.

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Solutions

          To combat the issue of certain businesses not being open to establishing discounts because of their fear of losing profits, we will make it clear to them that it is the opposite. If more students are incentivized to go to certain establishments, the gains made from the increased customers will outweigh the losses from the discounts. We will make sure that these businesses may be more inclined to form a partnership because they stand to benefit their business during these hard times. We can see examples of discounts that help both the students and the businesses, such as Terry’s 10% discount or the dollar discount for combo meals that many of the halal carts offer. As for the challenge imposed by larger chains, it is essential to remember that our policy focuses on the smaller, locally owned businesses. However, recently, the Student Union was able to secure a partial discount with Shake Shack. This partnership is a primary example of the fact that with enough effort, we will be able to obtain discounts with even the larger chains.

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