BACP has an overriding mission: to nurture and support businesses, to stop bad actors, and to protect consumers and employees from becoming victims.
Licensing: Our first priority is to be the city’s one stop shop for businesses. Our Small Business Center at City Hall makes getting a business license easy and customer friendly: we issue more than 60,000 licenses every year and the majority -- 60%+--are issued in one day.
The Small Business Center offers free one-on-one business counseling for entrepreneurs, including advice about business plans, legal issues, loans and even tax matters. Getting great advice from real experts can make all the difference for starting or growing a small business.
In addition, BACP has wide ranging responsibilities, including:
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Issuing more than 18,000 public way use permits;
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Inspecting thousands of businesses to ensure compliance with city laws;
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Licensing more than 10,000 public passenger vehicles, including taxis, liveries, rideshares, pedicabs and horse drawn carriages;
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Licensing more than 15,000 public chauffeurs;
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Licensing more than 100 food trucks;
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Hosting five Small Business Center On the Road Expos, which attracted over 1,000 attendees citywide; and
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Holding nearly 100 business workshops, many of which were held in both English and Spanish, and have been attended by more than 2,000 people.
We also help businesses in every neighborhood through our robust Neighborhood Business Development Center Program, (NBDC), which supports our Chambers of Commerce and other business-inspired organizations so that they can help small businesses start and grow.