Twin Cities to start Metro Independent Business Alliance - American Independent Business Alliance AMIBA

February 22, 2005

Alliance to offer support for small businesses

Neal Gendler, Star Tribune

Saying independent businesses are a source of community strength and job growth, several Twin Cities businesspeople are planning an organization to promote them.

The Metro Independent Business Alliance would be affiliated with the American Independent Business Alliance, which began after the success of a local alliance in Boulder, Colo., in 1997. The American alliance now has affiliates in operation or formation in 10 states and Manitoba.

"A big number of my fellow small-business people have recognized for a long time that we really have no organization that represents us," John Kolstad, president of Mill City Music, said Monday. Such businesses were the backbone of the 1990s economic recovery, and "we need to develop some clout commensurate with what we bring to the economy."

Alliance organizer David Unowsky, owner of the former Ruminator bookstore in St. Paul, said the alliance would seek to raise awareness of how locally owned businesses benefit communities and the advantages of patronizing them; create a marketing strategy for locally and independently owned businesses, and "unite community members, community organizations and our local businesses in reversing the trend of chain businesses taking over our community," a flier said.

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