A popular YouTuber and New York City business owner has vowed to defy a rule introduced by New York Mayor Bill de Blasio that will make vaccination mandatory for certain indoor activities and a condition of employment, arguing that the policy is authoritarian.
Louis Rossmann, whose biting commentaries on “right-to-repair” and a wide range of other issues have earned him a large social-media following, is the owner and operator of Rossmann Repair Group located in Manhattan. Arguably, he’s by far the most famous independent Mac and iPhone repair person in the United States, and became famous for championing legislation that would allow people to repair their devices without having to rely on services offered exclusively by the Silicon Valley giant.
Following Mayor de Blasio’s announcement of the program dubbed “Key to NYC Pass” — which will require patrons of indoor dining, fitness, and entertainment venues to show proof of vaccination against COVID-19 before entering, as well as require all staff to be vaccinated — Rossmann published a video in which he stated that his computer repair shop would not be turning away customers based on their vaccination status. The program is set to take effect on August 16, while inspections and enforcement are said to begin in mid-September.
Rossmann started his emotional video by stressing that he was fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and believes that the benefits of inoculation far outweigh the risks. “I’m not anti-vaccine,” he said, “I’m not even anti-vaccine for vaccines that have not had a full FDA approval.” The problem, Rossmann said, is that New York City’s leaders are “getting out of control” and “don’t understand the concept of consent.”
Showing a compilation of shuttered storefronts, Rossmann said that due to the economic devastation caused by more than a year of lockdowns and other restrictions, most businesses in the city don’t have the “luxury” of selecting paying customers based on their personal health decisions.
Rossmann expressed his outrage over de Blasio essentially forcing people to get vaccinated, and the degree to which the mayor had no respect for people’s personal choices, as he played a footage of de Blasio complaining on corporate media how the city “tried voluntarily” and how they “could not be more kind and compassionate,” but the “voluntary phase is over.”
“It’s time for these politicians to learn the meaning of the word ‘no,’” Rossmann continued, “When they say that you need to shut down your business, and we’re not gonna tell you when we’ll allow you to reopen your business, and we’re not gonna tell you or help you to pay a rent on that business, or the employees of that business, but you need to shut down — for all of these things, the answer should be ‘NO.’”
The businessman also expressed his disgust with de Blasio asking people to snitch on venues that allow their customers to violate social-distancing rules by taking pictures and sending them to the mayor’s office.
“When they say that we need to be the police that enforce whether or not people have injected something into their arm before they are allowed to do business with us, it’s about time that we say ‘NO,’” Rossmann stressed, adding, “these people are never going to learn unless we force them to.”
Rossmann went on to advise business owners to start using de Blasio’s own language against him, arguing they tried being “nice” and comply with all the lockdown rules and regulations, but now it’s time for a more forceful response: “If you’re saying that after a year of destroying all those businesses that used to be my customer base, I now need to reduce my customer base even more … based on people’s medical status?… NO!”
He added that while he’s “done” with de Blasio’s lockdowns and restrictions, if the city dares to go after his business, Rossmann said he would find a better place to move it to instead of staying in “this garbage dystopia that we’re starting to live in.” Rossmann called on people to push back on authoritarians and send them a strong message that they’ve crossed the last red line.
New York has seen a tremendous exodus of both businesses and people in the last year. In 2020, a net of 70,000 people left the metropolitan region, resulting in roughly $34 billion in lost income.
According to a Forbes report, the trend of businesses fleeing the Big Apple preceded the pandemic, as Wall Street executives relocated thousands of jobs to states outside of New York in an effort to cut costs. Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Barclays, UBS, Citigroup, Alliance Bernstein, and an array of other financial institutions have established and aggressively staffed hubs in Florida, North Carolina, Salt Lake City, Dallas, Nashville and other less-expensive locations compared to New York. But, the report continues, a combination of high taxes, poor governance on the part of Mayor de Blasio, ever-increasing crime, business and school shutdowns, and a resurgence in COVID-19 cases has led to even more businesses to relocate.
Small businesses have been struggling, as nearly a third of them have been permanently closed due to COVID-related shutdowns imposed by the city. Eater New York reports that as of July 30, the restaurant business is far from recovered: “More than one year after New York’s first indoor dining shutdown, restaurants and bars continue to close their doors,” and estimated that lockdowns left the city at least 1,000 restaurants short, while admitting the number may be actually much higher. The Patch adds, “the hospitality industry likely deserves its own category [among business closures], due to the near-total evaporation of all revenue during the pandemic lockdowns. In Midtown, the Omni Hotel, the Times Square Hilton, the storied Roosevelt Hotel, and the Marriott Marquis all announced temporary or permanent closures this year, laying off thousands of workers in the process.”
