New Jersey small business owner, and former U.S. Senate candidate, Curtis Bashaw, urged residents in the region and lawmakers to do more to support small businesses amid increasing challenges.
Bashaw, the owner of Cape Resorts who opened Cape May’s Virginia Hotel in 1989 to a workforce of 1,300, said in a Memorial Day op-ed in the New York Post that he worries about the ability of “today’s young people to find the same opportunities I enjoyed as an entrepreneur.”
“Simply put, regulations and red tape are strangling small businesses,” Bashaw wrote. “The cost of goods and products are skyrocketing along with inflation. There are more licensees to apply for each and every year. Whether opening a new hotel or simply a lemonade stand, dreaming big has never felt tougher.
“With all the hurdles small businesses now face, there are fewer incentives to take the plunge. Even generational businesses are losing their next generations — parents not wanting to saddle their kids with the stresses they endured. Or the children wanting an easier life.
“New Jersey is an especially difficult place to do business. Overregulated, over-taxed and one of the most expensive states in the nation, many entrepreneurs are seeking better opportunities in better places,” Bashaw added.
Bashaw noted in the piece that New Jersey ranks dead last in the region in cost competitiveness and business taxes for a seventh consecutive year in NJBIA’s 2025 Regional Business Climate Analysis.
“It’s not too late to reenergize our great Garden State,” Bashaw wrote. “We need to trust our employers – the vast majority of small business owners are good, hard-working community minded people. We need to unshackle them from burdensome regulations. We must make our state more affordable — from energy, to housing, to taxes.”
To see Bashaw's full op-ed, click here.
