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“Broadly, the notion of access to mainstream capital, that's where the racial wealth gap is really exacerbated,” he said. Most of these business owners rely on personal finance and credit, and often lack relationships with banks, according to Cy Richardson, senior vice president for economics and housing programs at the National Urban League, a nonprofit that advocates for economic and social justice for Black Americans. Of those, 1,827 Black-owned businesses received loans. It received racial and ethnic backgrounds from just 94,501 owners. In June, the Small Business Administration released a list of 661,218 organizations that received loans of $150,000 or more. between February and April, while white-owned businesses declined 17 percent. The national picture is also grim, especially for Black business owners: A report released in August by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found the number of Black-owned businesses declined more than 40 percent across the U.S. While the total economic fallout from the pandemic won’t be known for some time, August data from the business listing site Yelp found that more than 2,800 businesses had permanently closed since March in New York City alone, and a report published last month from the Partnership for New York City, a nonprofit business group, said as many as a third of the city’s “230,000 small businesses that populate neighborhood commercial corridors may never reopen.” “My fear if Alibi had gone down is to instill in the young mind that, ‘Oh, why bother? We’re Black and gay, it’s just going to fail anyway,’” said Minko, who has since reopened his bar outside at limited capacity in compliance with New York City’s rules.Įarlier this month, Alibi Lounge was one of 10 LGBTQ-owned businesses to be awarded funding through the Queer to Stay program, a small business initiative from Showtime and the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBTQ advocacy group. While Minko eventually received a small loan through the government’s emergency relief program, he said the donations “absolutely saved my business,” as well as the idea that it’s possible for a Black gay man to open his own bar. In only a matter of weeks, the campaign raised $165,000. He was on the brink of ending his lease, he said, when donations suddenly surged. (Courtesy Alibi Lounge)ĭesperate for assistance, Minko reluctantly set up an online fundraising campaign for his bar. Owner Alexi Minko in his bar, Alibi Lounge, in Harlem. Club Langston in Brooklyn closed last year after nearly two decades in business. Of the city’s dozens of remaining gay bars, just two - Lambda Lounge and Alibi Lounge, both in Harlem - are known to be Black owned. Though the reasons are not entirely clear, experts suspect the overall decline in gay bars is related to decades of skyrocketing rents and gentrification, which have disproportionately impacted small, Black-owned businesses the emergence of online dating sites and apps and circuit parties that rotate among venues, which have become increasingly popular among younger crowds.Īccording to online listings, there are more than 60 LGBTQ bars across the five boroughs of New York City, one of the metropolitan areas hardest hit by the pandemic, and many of these spaces are struggling to stay open. The closures have had a disproportionate impact on bars catering to women and people of color: Between 20, LGBTQ bar listings dropped by an estimated 37 percent, and those serving people of color plummeted by almost 60 percent, according to the study.