With 2024 quickly coming to a close, Quinte News spoke to Jill Raycroft, CEO of the Belleville Chamber of Commerce, to hear about how the year had gone for local businesses.
She said that 2024 had some challenges that local business owners had to overcome. First among them has been the ongoing state of emergency in the city due to the drug use and overdose epidemic.
“We want to make sure that the Ontario government understands that it’s not just a downtown problem, it’s not just a single business, it’s not a retail problem,” said Raycroft. “It’s a problem for businesses across all sectors for a lot of different reasons, and nobody wants to see that continue.”
While the impacts on the downtown area are highly visible, Raycroft says the issues caused by the substance abuse crisis are far reaching. For local businesses, that often means increased staffing costs, paying for security guards, paying for building repairs, and dealing with theft or vandalism.
While the chamber and local businesses faced challenges, the year wasn’t all problems. By the end of the year, the chamber will have held 45 ribbon-cutting ceremonies for new businesses opening in the community.
“In the last two years, we have almost doubled the number of new businesses,” said Raycroft. “So over the course of two years, we’re looking at nearly 100 new businesses, and those are the ones who have actually asked for ribbon cutting.”
The new business growth has been spread out across multiple sectors, with most of the new businesses being small startups rather than large corporations.
