Metro

‘No one wants to do business in the city’: Adams on de Blasio’s NYC

Democratic mayoral nominee Eric Adams on Friday decried the hostile approach the city has taken to business under Mayor Bill de Blasio’s leadership.

“Right now no one wants to do business in the city,” Adams said Friday on Bloomberg Radio. “We have been defined as a business-enemy city instead of a business-friendly city.”

The outgoing Brooklyn borough president, who’s heavily favored to win the general election against Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa in November, said he’s been meeting with business leaders for the past few years.

“I was alarmed to discover how too expensive and too difficult it is to do business in the [biggest city in the] Empire State,” he said. “We were a city where we built empires, but we’re a city made up of agencies and those agencies are in the way of building empires.”

He vowed to change city agencies to make the experience of filing permits and other paperwork more welcoming and efficient. Adams also said he would attract companies to set up headquarters in the outer boroughs and establish a single application system to connect out-of-work New Yorkers to local employers.

Adams’ remarks Friday were similar to the message he sent Monday to a group of financial professionals at the Javits Center in Manhattan.

“New York will no longer be anti-business,” Adams said at SALT New York earlier this week. “This is going to be a place where we welcome business and not turn into the dysfunctional city that we have been for so many years.”

The NYPD captain-turned-politician said business leaders have also asked him to focus on combating crime.

“What I’ve heard over and over again in all of the meetings? Public safety,” Adams said.

 Mayor of New York City Bill de Blasio attends the "Hometown Heroes" Ticker Tape Parade.
Democratic mayoral nominee Eric Adams on Friday decried the hostile approach the city has taken to business under Mayor Bill de Blasio’s leadership. Getty Images

He also pledged to turn around de Blasio’s frosty relationship with the NYPD.

“I know all the heads of all of the police unions,” Adams said Friday during a later interview on Bloomberg TV.

“I’ve communicated with them and I believe it’s time to hit reset,” he said.