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Businesses Feel Squeeze As Yonkers Raises Fees

YONKERS, N.Y. – Some small business owners say they are feeling the squeeze after Yonkers officials decided to raise licensing fees.

Last month, the City Council voted to raise the cost of various licenses that some businesses need to stay open. The increases range from $50 per year for a key maker to $400 per year for a large movie theater.

Bolivar Moham will have to pay $300 every two years to sell cigarettes at his Van Cortlandt Park Avenue bodega, up $100 from previous years.

“It’s just more money that is taken away from my family and my business,” he said. “Is it going to shut me down? No. Do I think its expensive? Yes.”

Moham is not alone. The city doubled the fees that movie theaters will pay annually and raised the rates for sidewalk cafes, pawnshops, locksmiths, coin-operated laundries, used-car dealers and bowling alleys, among others. City Council member Michael Sabatino said last week that the increases were long overdue.

“An increase in certain city fees was something that we needed to do,” he said. “They haven’t been adjusted in 10 years or so.”

Despite the decade-long lapse in increases, the vote isn’t sitting well with Greg Krokos, manager of Yonkers Pawn Brokers on Saw Mill River Road. The pawnshop’s annual fee will rise from $500 to $750.

“That’s government for you,” he said. “I think it’s absurd, charging 50 percent more than the year before. But what are you going to do about it?”

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