Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Overhauling Procedures and Expanding Navigation (OPEN) eliminates outdated permits, redundant paperwork, and unnecessary fines for restaurants, bodegas, barbershops, and small businesses across New York City
From making it easier to host Bingo games to making it simpler to serve ice cream, the reforms target the pesky issues slowing our small businesses down
New Executive Order reinforces excellence in City government’s customer service standards, offering concierge support and strengthened rights during inspections
NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani today announced “OPEN for Small Business”, a package of more than 50 regulatory reforms to reduce the paperwork and bureaucratic burden facing the city’s roughly 180,000 small businesses. Alongside an Executive Order that immediately implements several reforms, the package saves time, effort, and money for the small businesses that anchor New York’s economy and the one million New Yorkers they employ.
In January, Mayor Mamdani signed Executive Order 11, which directed seven city agencies — the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), Department of Sanitation (DSNY), Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), Department of Transportation (DOT), Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), Fire Department (FDNY), and Department of Buildings (DOB) — to inventory their fees and civil penalties and recommend ways to reduce them. In the six months since, the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice (DMEJ) and the Department of Small Business Services (SBS) held roundtables and surveyed over 500 business owners across all five boroughs to better understand the barriers they face.
Business owners who took part in these roundtables and surveys most often pointed to delays in opening, uncertainty about compliance requirements, and inconsistent enforcement as key pain points. OPEN responds directly to those findings.
What OPEN Means for Small Businesses Across the City
The more than 50 reforms in OPEN touch nearly every type of small business in New York City, and break down as follows: 25 for food service and food retail businesses, seven for transportation businesses, five for other retailers, four for child care providers, three for industrial and commercial businesses, two for personal care businesses, three for nonprofits running bingo and games of chance licenses, and six that apply to every business in the city.
The Full Reform Package
Developed by DMEJ and SBS in partnership with the agencies named in Executive Order 11, the package includes proposals to:
• Waive Mayoral approval for the sidewalk café program immediately, removing a layer of review that adds time without adding scrutiny, and will waive it for the roadway café program once outdoor dining reforms are enacted.
• Work with the State to eliminate the second permit restaurants need just to serve ice cream and other frozen desserts, a requirement left over from decades-old dairy regulation, on top of the general permit they already hold to serve food safely.
• Repeal the license a bodega needs to sell fruit, flowers, or soft drinks from a stand just outside its own door, on top of the license it already holds to sell those same goods inside.
• Publish a single plain-language guide for child care providers covering DOHMH, DOB, and FDNY together, so opening a center means one playbook instead of three separate agency timelines.
• Relocate the Health Academy, the City's only in-person location for the food protection course every restaurant needs, from the Upper West Side to 125 Worth Street, so an owner in Canarsie or Throgs Neck no longer loses most of a day just getting certified.
• Remove the requirement that mobile food vendors carry a paper copy of their commissary agreement on the cart at all times, even though the City already has the same document on file and can look it up itself.
• Extend license renewal cycles for newsstand operators, pawnbrokers, second-hand dealers, sightseeing bus companies, scale dealer repairers, and storage warehouses.
• Cut DEP registration fees for cooking equipment and food trucks from $110 to $0 for the next twelve months.
• Reduce the maximum penalty from $600 to $500 for three common food safety violations, and replace two overlapping City and State allergy-poster requirements with a single poster that satisfies both, so owners face one standard instead of the risk of multiple violations.
• Remove outdated regulations on bingo and game of chance licenses held by nonprofit fundraisers, including prize caps set well below what today's fundraisers are worth, so nonprofits and the businesses that host them aren't boxed in by decades-old limits.
A complete list of all 50-plus reforms is included in the accompanying policy summary:
nyc.gov/content/dam/nycgov/nyc-main/pdf/2026/Open-for-Small-Business.pdf
696 E 135th Street
The Bronx
July 20, 2026
Overhauling Procedures and Expanding Navigation (OPEN) eliminates outdated permits, redundant paperwork, and unnecessary fines for restaurants, bodegas, barbershops, and small businesses across New York City
From making it easier to host Bingo games to making it simpler to serve ice cream, the reforms target the pesky issues slowing our small businesses down
New Executive Order reinforces excellence in City government’s customer service standards, offering concierge support and strengthened rights during inspections
NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani today announced “OPEN for Small Business”, a package of more than 50 regulatory reforms to reduce the paperwork and bureaucratic burden facing the city’s roughly 180,000 small businesses. Alongside an Executive Order that immediately implements several reforms, the package saves time, effort, and money for the small businesses that anchor New York’s economy and the one million New Yorkers they employ.
In January, Mayor Mamdani signed Executive Order 11, which directed seven city agencies — the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), Department of Sanitation (DSNY), Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), Department of Transportation (DOT), Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), Fire Department (FDNY), and Department of Buildings (DOB) — to inventory their fees and civil penalties and recommend ways to reduce them. In the six months since, the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice (DMEJ) and the Department of Small Business Services (SBS) held roundtables and surveyed over 500 business owners across all five boroughs to better understand the barriers they face.
Business owners who took part in these roundtables and surveys most often pointed to delays in opening, uncertainty about compliance requirements, and inconsistent enforcement as key pain points. OPEN responds directly to those findings.
What OPEN Means for Small Businesses Across the City
The more than 50 reforms in OPEN touch nearly every type of small business in New York City, and break down as follows: 25 for food service and food retail businesses, seven for transportation businesses, five for other retailers, four for child care providers, three for industrial and commercial businesses, two for personal care businesses, three for nonprofits running bingo and games of chance licenses, and six that apply to every business in the city.
The Full Reform Package
Developed by DMEJ and SBS in partnership with the agencies named in Executive Order 11, the package includes proposals to:
• Waive Mayoral approval for the sidewalk café program immediately, removing a layer of review that adds time without adding scrutiny, and will waive it for the roadway café program once outdoor dining reforms are enacted.
• Work with the State to eliminate the second permit restaurants need just to serve ice cream and other frozen desserts, a requirement left over from decades-old dairy regulation, on top of the general permit they already hold to serve food safely.
• Repeal the license a bodega needs to sell fruit, flowers, or soft drinks from a stand just outside its own door, on top of the license it already holds to sell those same goods inside.
• Publish a single plain-language guide for child care providers covering DOHMH, DOB, and FDNY together, so opening a center means one playbook instead of three separate agency timelines.
• Relocate the Health Academy, the City's only in-person location for the food protection course every restaurant needs, from the Upper West Side to 125 Worth Street, so an owner in Canarsie or Throgs Neck no longer loses most of a day just getting certified.
• Remove the requirement that mobile food vendors carry a paper copy of their commissary agreement on the cart at all times, even though the City already has the same document on file and can look it up itself.
• Extend license renewal cycles for newsstand operators, pawnbrokers, second-hand dealers, sightseeing bus companies, scale dealer repairers, and storage warehouses.
• Cut DEP registration fees for cooking equipment and food trucks from $110 to $0 for the next twelve months.
• Reduce the maximum penalty from $600 to $500 for three common food safety violations, and replace two overlapping City and State allergy-poster requirements with a single poster that satisfies both, so owners face one standard instead of the risk of multiple violations.
• Remove outdated regulations on bingo and game of chance licenses held by nonprofit fundraisers, including prize caps set well below what today's fundraisers are worth, so nonprofits and the businesses that host them aren't boxed in by decades-old limits.
A complete list of all 50-plus reforms is included in the accompanying policy summary:
nyc.gov/content/dam/nycgov/nyc-main/pdf/2026/Open-for-Small-Business.pdf
696 E 135th Street
The Bronx
July 20, 2026
