Aimee McQuilkin, Small Business Owner, on the Importance of Public Protections

Aimee McQuilkin
Missoula, Montana

I opened a clothing store, Betty’s Devine, six years ago. I’m concerned in my community about safeguards and regulations being attacked in the name of small businesses.

We hear a lot of talk these days that businesses can’t maintain growth with the regulations as they are today, and I strongly disagree with that. Jobs aren’t being created and growth isn’t happening mainly because the demand is low, there are no customers.

If we deregulate, the playing field for businesses is completely tilted in the wrong direction. You can look at business as a game, as a baseball game, there are teams. If there are no rules, there is chaos. How can the game be played without rules? The government acts as the referees. We don’t want to attack the referees when they make calls on rules. We need to follow rules as a society.

In my community, my business is completely dependent on the health of my community. If people are sick because the air is faulty, my business suffers.

Looking back at Montana back in the late 1800s, in Butte, Montana, the air was black; lights were on all day because there were no regulations. There was strong growth going on there in mining, but no regulations on place to protect people’s health. We don’t want to return to that.

I want my children to be healthy, I want the children in my community to be healthy, I want them to receive the opportunities that I received, to grow up in a society where opportunity abounds and they can become entrepreneurs, too.

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Thanks to Main Street Alliance for connecting us with Aimee.