This is the perfect storm, commercial landlords versus small business owners. Commercial landlords doing their thing, while many small business owners think that they are a sacred cow to the country and are constitutionally entitled to a profitable enterprise.
Many small business owners are just so tight on cash flow that trying to raise rent on them is akin to squeezing blood out of a stone.
Fwiw, I know a small business owner who closed his bakery/restaurant because his landlord raised prices and he couldn't find another place where the financials would have worked for him. Raising prices isn't an option if your customers don't accept higher prices.
There are exceptions. One of my favorite live music venues - and a very popular local one - was basically driven out by their landlord: at the start of COVID, when we had actual lockdowns, they literally doubled the rent, knowing this - and mostly because they wanted that revenue themselves - they got absolutely pilloried when they re-opened (without their tenant), and used all the publicity and photos and name from the tenant's business to say "come here and enjoy our great live music", basically freeloading off the tenant's work.
But I do also know plenty of small business owners who act like their business failing is anyone's fault but their own. I watched another business collapse and they were literally posting on Facebook, "It is sad to see that our dream with so much potential collapsed because the community wasn't willing to support it."
Yup, and a lot of them have been burning what little cash they have remaining trying to do the same thing the commercial landlords have been trying to do - get business going again post-COVID.
