Meet Republican Jim Hasher, a small-business owner running for Philadelphia City Council

When the world shut down in March 2020 amid the spread of COVID-19, Jim Hasher’s realty firm closed. His Northeast Philly restaurant closed. And the Torresdale Boys Club, which he ran for years, closed.

It ultimately inspired him to do something he says he never planned: run for Philadelphia City Council. He said small businesses could have been better supported through the pandemic if City Hall had a stronger “business mindset.”

“I bring a very independent voice to round out City Council with my experience,” Hasher said in an interview.

Hasher, 60, is a Republican hoping to win one of seven at-large seats on Council this November. Voters select up to five candidates, meaning five Democrats on the ballot are considered all-but-certain to win, given the party’s large voter registration advantage in the city.

That leaves two seats up for grabs, and the GOP’s two candidates — Hasher and his running mate, Drew Murray — are battling the progressive Working Families Party in a race that could tilt the ideological balance of the city’s legislative body. Incumbent Councilmember Kendra Brooks, the first third-party candidate to win a seat on Council in decades, is running alongside pastor Nicolas O’Rourke.

Here’s what to know about Hasher and his run for Council:

Hasher said he believes he can bring a small-business owner’s perspective to Council. He’s been a real estate broker for 35 years, and also owns Jimmy’s Timeout Sports Pub, a neighborhood restaurant in Torresdale that’s known for its roast pork and beef sandwiches.

» READ MORE: Coming to Philly City Council this fall: Drama over the Sixers arena, crime, and who will be in charge

He said he feels a responsibility to give back to the city where he was born and raised.

“I’m a longtime city leader, president of a youth organization,” Hasher said. “My business and real estate background, coupled with community service, make me uniquely qualified, especially to address the issues that every neighborhood across the city is facing right now.”

As opposed to district Council members, who spend much of their time focused on land use and city service delivery in their districts, at-large members have more freedom to undertake more niche issues. Hasher said he’s most passionate about combating the drug and opioid epidemic.

Hasher said the city needs to “focus on practical solutions,” and he drew a distinction between himself — a longtime resident of Northeast Philadelphia — and other politicians from outside the city who have made campaign stops in Kensington, the epicenter of the city’s drug trade. He called out a fellow Republican: Mehmet Oz, who unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate last year.

“It drives me out of my mind when people like Dr. Oz walk the Avenue,” Hasher said, “and then you never hear from them again.”

Hasher said he opposes supervised drug consumption sites and would prefer that the city prioritize getting more people into recovery through medically assisted treatment. He also said the city should invest more city dollars to fill open positions in the police department, which is down hundreds of officers, and the fire department, which has had a shortage of paramedics.

He said he’d also advocate for new state and federal support.

“We need to make sure that every available avenue of help is going to come this way,” Hasher said.

Hasher was born in Philadelphia and says he has basically never left, save for a few trips to Wildwood and a honeymoon in Florida. He lives in Torresdale with his wife, Stacie, and has five sons, who range in age from 17 to 31. His second oldest son, Patrick, is his campaign manager.

In addition to his businesses and his work as president of the Torresdale Boys Club, Hasher has long been connected to the city’s Republican Party apparatus. He’s a former GOP ward leader, and he unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 1994.

Taxes: Hasher said that if he were elected, one of the first things he would do is introduce a bill to waive the realty transfer tax for first-time home buyers. The tax is currently 4.278% of the sale price or the assessed value of the property. He said he also favors continued reductions to the city’s wage and business taxes, saying those efforts generate “positive feedback for small businesses who just went through the pandemic and who are taxed every way possible.”

Hasher said he also supports the city’s tax abatements for new and rehabbed properties as a means of encouraging development and population retention.

» READ MORE: See how the property tax abatement reshaped some Philly neighborhoods — and left others untouched

Proposed arena: Hasher is in favor of the proposed Sixers arena in Center City, one of the most controversial development projects that Council will face in the coming years. He said that although he realizes the proposed arena on the edge of Chinatown could be a “major inconvenience,” he believes that the benefits “far, far outweigh any kind of problem we’re going to have with this.”

Those benefits, he said, include thousands of unionized construction jobs and the tax revenue that would come from the arena.

“We can open this up the right way,” he said. “And I think it’s hypocritical to protest 10,000 union jobs.”

Hasher said he considers himself a centrist Republican and does not entirely align ideologically with the national party.

“I want to rip the label off of this from day one,” he said. “This is not about a Republican race or a Democratic race. This is about whose vision is best for the city.”