Occupy Wall Street is Killing Small Business

An article from the New York Post

Protesters force cafe layoffs as biz drops

By KEVIN FASICK, SALLY GOLDENBERG and BOB FREDERICKS

Last Updated: 10:00 AM, November 2, 2011

Posted: 2:55 AM, November 2, 2011

They want to change the economy, and now they have -- by putting people out of work!

Heartbroken Shamil Cepeda was one of 21 employees of a once-thriving cafe and catering business who just got fired because the weeks-long Occupy Wall Street protest chased away too many customers.

“I support their freedom of speech but the whole thing is hypocritical if it makes people lose their jobs,” a tearful Cepeda, 23, told The Post yesterday.

“Isn’t that the whole point of the protest?” fumed Cepeda, 23, who had worked at the Milk Street Cafe at 40 Wall St. since it opened in June.

She said she supported the protesters at first -- but now, she’s furious at them.

“I felt really, really angry,” Cepeda said of learning she was a casualty of the supposedly pro-worker movement. “I really enjoyed the job. I liked the people and my co-workers. Everybody was so enthusiastic to make the company go.”

Cepeda also had some common-sense advice for the mash-up of protesters and squatters who have occupied Zuccotti Park since Sept. 17.

“If they would just go get a real job, helping real people, that would help a lot more than just taking up space and shouting at people and putting others they claim to care for out of work,” she declared.

Her former boss, Milk Street Cafe owner Marc Epstein, said he had no choice but to slash staff after Occupy Wall Street caused his business to plummet 30 percent -- and warned he may have to shut down soon.

“We laid off people Friday. We had a staff of about 100,” fumed Epstein. “It’s sad, it’s just so sad.”

He said the ragtag protesters and metal police barricades in front of his once-booming business forced not only Friday’s employee bloodbath but a drastic cut in the eatery’s hours of operation.

“We had to cut back from [closing at] 9 in the evening to just 3:30 in the afternoon,” he said.

The protests, he said, have turned parts of once-bustling Wall Street into a ghost town.

“Wall Street, which is a beautiful pedestrian mall, has for the last six weeks become totally desolate. People aren’t walking here anymore,” he said.

“The food industry does not have anybody in the 1 percent, workers or owners,” said Epstein, who has no love for the protesters.

But he also pointed a finger at the NYPD and City Hall, which he said had ignored his pleas for help.

“I’m saying to all of them, understand the consequences of your actions. As a result of you guys making these decisions, a small business that just invested in your city is threatened, as well as all of the jobs here,” he said.

Also yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg and one of his predecessors, Ed Koch, sparred over who caused the nation’s financial turmoil.

“It’s not the banks that created the mortgage crisis. It was, plain and simple, Congress who forced everybody to go and give mortgages to people who were on the cusp,” Bloomberg said during the 40th- anniversary breakfast of the Association for a Better New York.

“They were the ones that pushed the banks to loan to everybody, and now we want to go vilify the banks because ... It’s easy to blame them.”

But Koch said, “I want to see somebody ... punished criminally. There’s something wrong with a kid who steals a bike going to jail and someone who steals millions paying a fine.”

Meanwhile, Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver took some shots at the protesters and Bloomberg.

“I asked the mayor to enforce those codes, to enforce the health code while reinforcing the right of people to express themselves,” Silver said, echoing a letter that he and other lawmakers had sent the mayor. People have rights, Silver added, but they “should not include drumming in the middle of night ... defecating or urinating on sidewalks and in places that cause odors, and [they] should not include [police] barriers ... that are infringing on businesses’ right to exist.’’

Other signers of the letter included Rep. Jerrold Nadler, state Sen. Daniel Squadron and City Councilwoman Margaret Chin, all of whose districts include Zuccotti Park.

In another development, the protesters’ security team spotted a man suspected of sex assault in the encampment and notified cops. They took him into custody for questioning.

Additional reporting by Lisa Riordan Seville in New York and Erik Kriss in Albany

rfredericks@nypost