Small business owners in the Kansas City area got a chance to voice some of their concerns to members of Congress during a roundtable meeting last Friday.
U.S. House Small Business Committee members who attended were from both political parties, and the meeting was hosted by U.S. Rep. Mark Alford, R-Mo. 4th District.
Andy Rieger, co-founder of J. Rieger & Co. Distillery in Kansas City, told committee members that his business has been hampered by overzealous government employees who don’t understand how the distillery business works.
“They’re not actually professional. They don’t actually know what they’re doing. They saw a job opening (for a regulator), and they took it. They don’t understand the industry,” Rieger said. “They go to a job site. (Our employee) has to explain what is going on, and then (the regulators) interpret things. For example, I got written up by the FDA because we were storing whiskey in a raw wooden container!”
Rieger told the panel of U.S. representatives that regulators’ jobs should be to seek compliance first, and enforcement second.
“I just always tell regulators, ‘Hey, I want you to come here and I’ll invite you in if you’re seeking compliance, not seeking enforcement.’ And that’s something that I believe is a messaging tool,” he said. If they don’t do it correctly, give them a warning, give them another warning, give them another warning, and then you (issue fines) when there is clear issues going on and someone is not being forthcoming about what they are doing.”
Another glaring need facing small business owners is expanded access to capital, according to Will Ruder of the Home Builders Association of Greater Kansas City.
“We are always fronting the money on the next project, essentially, through payroll, through stuff like that,” Ruder said. “A lot of our customers will also string you out on payments. Nobody wants to pay in 14 days or two weeks anymore or a month or whatever. That’s one of the root causes of why you need capital in some things.”
Discussions also turned to the upcoming FIFA World Cup games in Kansas City. Tracy Welpe with KC 2026 told Congressman Alford that the group is already working to educate small businesses on how they can profit from the event.
“We worked early with FIFA to understand what their contracts would be, and we understood from them that they were going to be in the event production disciplines because FIFA is focused on the stadium matches,” Welpe said. “So then we said, now let’s pivot to the visitors — 650,000 visitors are estimated. They’re going to need products and services.”
Kansas City’s 2026 World Cup matches are scheduled from June 16 – July 11.
In addition to Alford, the roundtable meeting in Kansas City included U.S. House Small Business Committee Chairman Roger Williams, R-Texas 25th Dist.; U.S. Rep. Gil Cisneros, D-California 31st Dist.; U.S. Rep. Troy Downing, R-Montana 2nd Dist., U.S. Rep. Derek Tran, D-California 45th Dist., U.S. Rep. (Delegate) Kimberlyn King-Hinds, R-Northern Mariana Islands; and U.S. Rep. Derek Schmidt, R-Kansas 2nd District.
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