From NJTV:
Communities Give Back for Small Business Saturday
Sandwiched between Black Friday and Cyber Monday is Small Business Saturday when local retailers and business owners band together to get customers shopping in their communities.
“It shouldn’t be about getting up at 5 a.m. and running through a door and getting trampled — it’s not the spirit of Christmas. When you come here, you’re important to us,” said Elaine Moffett, owner of Periwinkle’s Fine Gifts. “You’re an individual and you’re treated very kindly year round by us.”
The movement was started in 2010 by American Express as a way to help small businesses rebound from the recession. The incentive: a statement credit on cardholders’ bills. Now, it’s a holiday weekend mainstay with the support of the U.S. Small Business Administration.
This is the biggest shopping weekend of the year. SBA Regional Administrator Kellie LeDet says it can make or break a small business.
“Look at the small businesses. Look at what they do. They hire our locals, they stabilize our communities and our economy and are destination spots,” LeDet said.
…
There are nearly 800,000 small businesses in New Jersey. They employ almost two million people in the Garden State, according to the National Retail Federation. The SBA says more than half the population nationwide owns or works for a small business.“Two of the three new net jobs in this country will be in small business so we have to make sure that we support these efforts moving forward,” said Congressman Donald Payne, Jr.
“It’s not easy. It’s hard. I come to work at 6 in the morning, I go home at 10 o’clock at night,” said restaurant owner Marcos Quijada. “When I wake up, I wake up with energy because we have a business.”
From the Star Ledger:
Where to get the best Small Business Saturday deals in N.J.
Here are some of the events on offer around New Jersey on Small Business Saturday:
Asbury Park, home to a raft of one-of-a-kind boutiques, will invites shoppers to its annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony inside the Grand Arcade in Convention Hall, with doors opening at 6 p.m. and free live musical performances by The Weeklings, The Ocean Ave Stompers, Yawn Mower, Nervous Triggers, and DJ Foggy Notion.
Saturday is just the beginning in Flemington. The town’s “Big Week to Shop Small” runs through December 1 and will feature special discounts at participating businesses, plus the first five customers to visit each retailer will get a $10 discount on any purchase of $25 or more. You can also enter to win one of five $100 Flemington shopping vouchers good at participating stores, no purchase required.
Colonial-era Haddonfield is stretching Small Business Saturday through the weekend, with its traditional “candlelight shopping” — the streets are lined with luminarias — beginning Friday at 6 p.m., with the tree lighting at 6:30 p.m. at Library Point, plus shopping specials, gift certificate discounts, and horse-drawn carriage rides through Sunday.
Go hungry to Montclair on Saturday, where many of the participating businesses will be tempting shoppers with refreshments — hot cider, cocoa, doughnuts, wine and cheese, chocolate truffle samples. A full list of offerings is here.
Morristown’s Small Business Saturday features a scavenger hunt starting at b.jones Organic Spa, where you pick up a passport to unlock specials at participating businesses (here’s a partial list), including the salons, galleries and cafes scattered around and beyond the Green. Collect stamps from the shops and return to the spa for a swag bag.
Somerville, which has one of the prettiest downtown in the state, are offering surprises on Saturday — just look for the “Shop Small” sidewalk sticker outside participating stores. The annual Holiday Jubilee begins at 5 p.m., with music, Santa’s arrival, the Christmas tree lighting, horse-drawn carriage rides along Main Street and carolers throughout the evening.
Red Bank, where you can find indie shops and small New Jersey chains Carter & Cavero (olive oils and gourmet foods) and national boutiques Alex and Ani (jewelry), will have free parking Friday and Saturday, plus music from noon to 3 p.m., photos with Santa from noon to 4 p.m. at The Galleria, 2 Bridge Ave., and free horse & wagon rides. (The music, Santa photos and rides continue through the holiday season, click here for details.)
Ridgewood, known for its jewelry and home decor shops, will celebrate Small Business Saturday in conjunction with its sixth annual Winterfest at Memorial Park at Van Neste Square, with ice sculptures, performances by the Orpheus Club Men’s Chorus, complimentary hot chocolate, a trackless train ride and horse-drawn hayrides around town.
Westfield’s downtown, which offers a mix of national chains (Williams-Sonoma, Gap, Urban Outfitters) and local favorites (the Farmhouse Store, Thinka Dinka) has free parking all day Saturday, Santa and Mrs. Claus from 10 a.m. to noon, carolers from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., the Harmonics from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., and the NJ Workshop for the Arts Brass Quintet from 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Abe Vigoda = Fidel Castro
My grandparents ran a small business for over 40 years. Both sets of grandparents in fact. I have a soft spot for the local………I really like Montclair for shopping. There is a place there https://www.heratij.com/ that I love…love…love. Currently they are selling artisanal jeans and they are incredible. Made in USA, bring you back to what a great blue jean could feel like. I should know, for many many years we had the Levi strauss franchise for a county in Western Ky. Used to outfit the miners there. Extended credit with a handshake. Set up sidewalk sales. Shook hands. Sold stuff. Then came the Mall.
“Yours is a problem of exposure to industry and businesses. Strip malls and franchises and nail salons isn’t what I’m talking about.”
CNC machines, 3D printing, AliBaba and Kickstarter, have changed the market, where light engineering is no longer really feasible.
What else are you thinking.
Yep, you are right, alibaba and 3d printing, it’s all over.
Spend some time in NJ’s industrial complexes, go knock door to door, you’d be surprised at how many people would love to talk.
Would you like to come along, I can show you a few companies that would knock your socks off.
Grim [06:49];
Are dead pools still a “thing”?
P.S. – Did you get my Q by email? Thanks.
I do a lot with radio and communications, and see it a lot around the maker spaces. Very innovative, but reality is, a couple of hundred units at most. The app developers are dreaming Flappy bird, but the reality is, their app is stuck behind 50 variants of the same thing.
Wallets and watches seem to do well, but that comes down to style and design.
Oh shot yes, Wayne Tile clearance center if you are looking for something really expensive for a low $$ – but limited qty.
Otherwise Tile wholesalers of Newark in iron bound.
For Marble I got a wholesale place in North Bergen.
Mille grazie… errr, I mean, muchas gracias…
Actually, limited qty via the outlet may work for us; only doing the tub area – 75-85 sq.ft. Rest of bathroom getting repainted.
Under sink Reverse Osmosis, whole house filter or both?
Whole house only makes sense if you have enough access to plumbing to filter the lines going to taps and tubs. Not toilets and outside spigots, sprinklers.
So, undercounter is most useful, by far.
Even in the whole house scenario, it really only makes sense to do sediment and a large activated carbon tank, not RO. RO is incredibly wasteful, so not ideal for shitters and showers. Carbon, however, will make just as perceptible a difference.
Test your water, NNJ is usually pretty good.
Any decent undercounter RO is going to completely eliminate VOCs and metals. Use it for all cooking as well, and tap the fridge and the ice maker on the line As well.
Filters 4x a year and bleach out the tank and lines at least once a year.
I Russian roulette with my tap. Though have crude filters on my coffee makers and on the fridge.
Talking about small businesses. How about them IT training centers? You know the ones that offer traditional classroom training? Anyone see any opportunity in such a business? Either as a franchise or a new shop?
In IT you need the trainers. Once you have them you could partner with any number of companies to meet their training needs. Selling that contract first and then reaping the rewards.
For steamturd Lacking another obvious recipient. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct6BUPvE2sM
Opa gangnam style.
Taking a deep breath and trying not to remind my Cuban friends of Batista and his role.
Fabius is deeper than Batista. There is a book “Becoming Cuban” a historian from one of the North Carolina U’s that explains it in depth. But goes something like this.
Up to 1830-40s, Cuba’s plantation economy elite’s sent their kids to Spain for an education. Around the 1830+ they started to send them to New Orleans. Of course they came back with ideas (liberty/democracy/free thinkers- the usual suspects). Also around that time a bunch of southerners crossed and settle in an area of Mexico, known as Texas and then made a big fuss, when the local authorities demanded their respects.
Move forward a few decades and then a bunch of slavery loving violent gun totting Anglo southerners from the losing side start settling in Cuba. By the way, slavery was legal in Cuba till 1886. The problem was this raised alarms in Madrid, which figured – we are on our way to another Texas. So they start rounding up non-elites local and likely ruffians, anglos and anybody that was not vouched a 100% and put in concentration camps were 2/3 of the population/prisoners died off. This civil war lasted 30 yrs.
1895+ In rides Teddy and his rough riders, followed by the US Navy. They find a decimated, destroyed countryside. Cubans kept complaining about independence, so 1903 the US gives it to them with 2 exceptions – Cuba’s foreign policy and ability to raise debt must be approved by US Congress (Platt Amendment).Some betting businessmen explore and make deals. But nothing much happens. Until WW1 which decimates sugar beet related sugar production and a search for replacement.
There is a race to see who can buy, build, and start production fastest by big Sugar Investors – among them Hershey. They buy or lease land from the old plantation owning families. This families saw themselves as loyal to Spain, not to the new Cuba and did not particularly like the US. Hershey and other built company towns, but what you know – they do it along the usual Jim Crow southern tradition. So white managers, white workers, Cuban managers, Cuban white workers, and blacks. Of course it spread and even the new Cuban Army and Police force were segregated.
The 1930’s and the depression comes about. A new president elected. Name Machado, wants to do social reform FDR style. Gets rid of Platt Amendment and is soon deposed by Batista’s first coup in 1938. Batista rules thru 1944. New Constitution, new elections. 1944-1952 democracy. Understand that it was still a plutocratic democracy driven by the Spain loving landowners with deeply fascistic tendencies (Franco was a sympathizers of the Axis in WW2) and the US Corporate interests – likethere was no corporate income tax or a estate/inheritance tax. By the way still today is a rare find to encounter an estate/inheritance tax in Latin America.
1952 – The economy not doing so good, as it is a plantation/mercantilistic recipient economy. People upset. Batista does his 2nd coup. This time he goes fully corrupt and takes in Meyer Lansky which was on the run from NY Atty General Dewey.
By this time, understand that their are 3 Cuban social classes. The old plantation Spain loving landholders – living comfortably as rentiers. A US centric businessmen/middle class that made its living in the trades and the working/poor class. But by 1955, all felt that the place had become an opium den/whorehouse. It did not help that Batista’s goon were killing urban and rural folks on a whim. The rest is history.
By the way many of these Batista’s goon, later become enforcers in the Miami criminal/drug syndicates that arose in the 70’s and 80’s – (see the Documentary Cocaine cowboys).
PS. All of you check out the Asbury Park Press piece on how the NJ municipal courts have become an ATM.
To celebrate Black Friday, Cards Against Humanity is digging a tremendous hole in the earth, the Holiday Hole.
Total raised. $96,252
https://holidayhole.com/
Hmmm… I wonder why Jill Stein is only asking for recounts in states that Trump won narrowly and not in states that HRC won even more narrowly?
I also wonder why “news” outlets don’t report that of the 2.2 million votes by which HRC won the popular vote, about 5 million of them live in NY and CA.
Chuck Todd should be nominated for Secretary of Smarmy.
PS. All of you check out the Asbury Park Press piece on how the NJ municipal courts have become an ATM.
I remember about 13 years ago, I was called as a witness in New Brunswick. The corrections officer announced “Everyone in the court room, Judge Gordon is here, you are all going to jail”.
So, I’m reading a book and he calls up a noise violation person. Then, he goes “actually, everyone in here with a noise violation, come here, we’ll get this all out of the way and get you home early, how many of you plead guilty? I can sentence you anywhere from $100 to $1500, how do you all plead?” Everyone then pleads guilty. “I fine you all the maximum $1500, can you pay right now, if you can’t, it’s $5 a day in jail, you have until 9 o’clock”. Immediately all the college kids who obviously have no way of getting that money that fast crap themselves.
Next up, some poor Filipino woman who parked in a reserved handicapped spot that her tag didn’t qualify her for. He calls her name. Her grandson says to her in her language to get up and go to the mic. Immediately, he calls out the kid and asks him why he’s speaking? He explains that she cannot speak English and he was there to help her. He says, “well, I’m charging you with contempt of court, how do you plead? Oh not guilty? Well, I find you guilty, $500 fine, can you pay now? Why not? Well you have until 9 o’clock, or its $5 a day in jail.” Poor kid went there to help his grandmother and did nothing wrong as was $500 short.
At that point, I put the book down and don’t dare cough or sneeze. The smartest guy there refused to take whatever plea he arranged unless he got to do so on another day with a another judge there.
At some point the prosecutor called me in his office as a witness. And I flat out told the prosecutor, yeah I saw the crime, but I cannot be in that court room at all with that judge? I didn’t come here to get thrown in jail. He laughed and was like, how about you go home and we’ll call you if we need you.
Not long after, Judge Gerald Gordon was removed from the bench.
Juice [12:02];
An oldie, but … http://www.theonion.com/video/in-the-know-should-the-government-stop-dumping-mon-14289
Saw a judge like that in Paramus once who told a shoplifter that he should have packed a toothbrush since he’ll be going to jail. He also told a girl who bounced a check that it was smart she was dressed in orange since it would match her jump suit. He also told the 3rd person that day, who claimed he didn’t know English, that he will need to learn how to speak it by the end of the docket. After this, I immediately ran to the prosecutor to negotiate a deal over my criminal trespass charge (argued about a 6th Avenue Electronics policy) since it was my brother’s wedding the following day.
In Montclair court I almost got, well not railroaded, but adjourned because the prosecutor lied to me. I was in my early twenties and I certainly did rear-end this old guy’s Buick with my school bus on Grove Street. In fact I rear-ended him several times while his foot was on the brake collapsing his mid-70’s sizable trunk into approximately a hatchback. Yes, I was a little hung over and I was driving with no hands (no kids on board) while I sipped my coffee and ate my buttered roll. There was a parked short bus on the other side of Grove Street and the old guy just jammed on the brakes. I hit him at least 3 or 4 times as I braked the bus to a stop (and spilled some of my coffee). Anyway, in my early 20’s mind it was all his fault because he braked for no reason, so I had my own half-assed defense to put on for the careless driving ticket I was issued…
…flash forward to the Montclair court date. I pleaded not guilty and waited and waited and waited for my case to be called. After a couple hours the prosecutor sought me out and told me it would be many more hours before my case would be called and asked if we could adjourn to a later date. I agreed. He told me to go to the clerk and arrange a future court dated. I then approached the clerk and told him what the prosecutor told me and he said that they were almost done for the night and there was no way it would be hours until my case, only minutes. I forget exactly what I did, but I made a substantial stink that attracted the judge’s attention. The judge asked the prosecutor if he was ready to argue may case and he admitted he wasn’t. The judge dismissed the charges against me. Good times, good times.