The Torrance City Council accepted a proclamation officially accepting the Saturday after Thanksgiving as Small Business Saturday in the City of Torrance during a Nov. 21 meeting.
Torrance Mayor, Patrick Furey, accepted the proclamation during the ‘community matters’ section of the council meeting in the presence of several local small business owners and representatives from the Torrance Area Chamber of Commerce.
“I urge all the residents of our city and communities across the country to support small businesses and merchants on Small Business Saturday, and throughout the year,” Furey said.
Torrance Chamber of Commerce President and CEO, Donna Duperron, was in attendance to show her support of local small businesses and to bring gifts to the councilmembers to thank them for recognizing Small Business Saturday in the City of Torrance.
“The growth of big box stores and the raising of minimum wages results in failing small businesses,” Duperron said. “Supporting Small Business Saturday is a way of thanking local small businesses for what they bring to the City of Torrance.”
Small Business Saturday was started by American Express in 2010 to try to encourage shoppers to spend money locally during the holiday season when they would typically be shopping at big box stores instead.
According to the American Express website, “In an effort to support these local places that make our communities strong, American Express launches Small Business Saturday on the Saturday after Thanksgiving – hoping to help bring more holiday shopping to small businesses.”
In 2011 the U. S. Senate unanimously supported Small Businesses Saturday and in 2012 it was recognized in all 50 states, the day has continued to grow in popularity since.
According to the Small Business Saturday website, “Small business owners generated an estimated $15.4 billion and 112 million people came out to shop on Small Business Saturday in 2016.”
The success of Small Business Saturday is beneficial to California, a state that has a significant small business presence.
According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, Small Businesses account for 3.8 million of the businesses in the state of California, employ 6.8 million Californians, and make up nearly 96 percent of California exporters.
Over 50 local Small Business owners came together in celebration of this proclamation to create a list of deals at their respective businesses that would be available through the week of Nov. 25 to Dec. 2 not just on Saturday.
“It took a lot to get the 50 businesses that we had to actually turn in all of their paperwork… and the Torrance Area Chamber with our 850 members are about 64 percent small businesses,” Duperron said. “So, go out and enjoy shopping and thank you for shopping local.”
Torrance residents were happy to support local businesses.
“It’s my preference shopping at a local business,” Torrance resident Carol Stevens, 60, said. “I would much rather shop somewhere small than somewhere like Walmart.”
Local business owner, Liliane Ariss, was glad that the City of Torrance came out in official support of the day and hopes to see the trend of shopping local continue to grow.
“It really is one of the biggest weekends of the year for us and helps with year-end expenses that small businesses face,” Ariss said. “Every year we create all types of deals and customers get excited to come out and support us, we have customers asking us about it weeks in advance. It’s nice to see the community support local businesses that help support the cities that they live in.”
ECC Union Julie 