Brighton Beach city inspectors teach instead of ticket
Crystal Walker | News 12 Brooklyn
BRIGHTON BEACH – Several businesses in Brighton Beach got a surprise visit from city inspectors Thursday, but instead of receiving tickets for violations, owners were given a free lesson on how to avoid fines in the future.
The Department of Consumer Affairs educated owners on violations that they were unaware of, so business owners can be prepared the next time they get a surprise visit from a city inspector.
“We’re not issuing violations, our inspectors are going to be going door to door and pointing out where there might be a violation and educating the businesses and sharing a lot of material with them,” says Alba Pico, of the Department of Consumer Affairs.
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I coordinated an interview with BK Live and Grace Louis, senior program officer at NYC DCA’s Office of Financial Empowerment. With a month to Tax Day, it was important to emphasize the City’s free tax preparation services and the many options available for Brooklynites.
If you don’t have a job, or you want a better one, advertisements like these may seem promising:
CLEANERS – NOW STAFFING – F/T & P/T, no exp needed. Up to $29.00 per hour.
The U.S. economy continues to improve and the unemployment rate is decreasing, reaching a seven-year low of 5.2 percent in New York City in September, according to the New York State Department of Labor. But many people are still looking for a job or seeking a better one, which can be a stressful and time-consuming process. Lured by advertisements and the promise of work, some turn to an employment agency for help.
The New York City Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA), which I serve as Commissioner, licenses and regulates employment agencies. While we are very vigilant in our protection of job seekers, with such a high demand for services and many people desperately in need of work, there are inevitably those who try to take advantage of vulnerable individuals. This has led to a proliferation of predatory employment agencies that exploit the unemployed or underemployed who are trying their best to provide for their families.
One of these individuals was Rosa. After paying $125 to an employment agency, the agency sent her to a laundromat that they claimed was looking for workers. However, when Rosa went to inquire about the job, the owner of the laundromat said they were not hiring and had never asked for workers. Rosa returned to the employment agency asking for a refund, but was refused one. Their only response to her was that she was “too old” and so the laundromat just didn’t want to hire her.
And Marlon, a man from Queens, New York, paid a $125 advance fee to an employment agency plus a $774 fee for a construction training class. The agency guaranteed Marlon a job. Not only did it fail to come through on that promise, it never even referred him to a potential employer. When Marlon returned to the agency to demand a refund, the office had been abandoned.
I-Team: Restaurants Use False Identities on Food Delivery Websites
Chris Glorioso, Ann Givens, Evan Stulberger | NBC 4
Feel like delivery food tonight? If you order on the popular websites Seamless or GrubHub, the kitchen cooking your dinner may not be what it claims to be.
The I-Team checked 100 of New York City’s top customer-rated Seamless and GrubHub restaurants and found slightly more than 10 percent of the kitchens were ghosts, meaning they had names or addresses that failed to match any listing on the city’s database of restaurant inspection grades.
Julie Menin, the city’s Consumer Affairs Commissioner, said her office has also found ghost restaurants using unregistered names and false addresses. She believes some of the Seamless and GrubHub ads may actually be fronts for unregulated kitchens.
“Some people might be illegally operating from their apartment, from their home, and delivering to people in complete contravention to department of health regulation,” Menin said.
Telemundo 47 Responde: Agencias de trabajo Liz Gonzalez
I pitched a story on DCA’s announcement on the results of its multi-pronged approach to combating predatory employment agency practices. Liz Gonzalez, who covers Telemundo’s consumer protection segment interviewed DCA’s First Deputy Commissioner Alba Pico on the results of the investigation and what job seekers should know when using employment agencies.
Laundromats Shrink From Parts of NYC Do-it-yourself service becoming scarce in higher-rent areas such as the Upper West Side
Corinne Ramey | Wall Street Journal
Self-service laundromats appear to be a vanishing amenity in some New York City neighborhoods even as their numbers overall in the city have slightly increased.
In neighborhoods like the Upper West Side, where retail rents are higher compared with much of the city and many newer apartments have in-building laundries, residents say laundromats are becoming scarce.
On a recent Sunday, neighbors mourned the final day of operation of Laundry Room Plus on Columbus Avenue between West 85th and 86th streets.
“This was like the perfect laundromat, darn,” said Charles Addison,44 years old. The next laundromat “is a long walk from here.”
Jaylieen Camacho, 13, sat waiting with her mom. “I’m sad because we’re probably going to have to drive and that’s a lot of work,” she said.
In an attempt to save Laundry Room Plus, a handful of Upper West Side residents circulated a petition and brought the issue to the attention of local officials. “It’s really, really distressing for the community as a whole,” said Mimi Timell, 56, a laundromat regular, who tried to keep the business from closing. “A lot of people don’t really realize the magnitude of it.”
Enjoying That Refreshing Blast of Cool Air on the Sidewalk? It’s Illegal
Nicole Levy | DNAinfo
Walk along any commercial strip in New York City this summer (as we did) and you’re bound to pass an open door expelling a blast of cool air. It’s a smart strategy: a store that gives overheated passersby a brief respite from the heat is a store luring customers inside.
It’s also illegal.
In 2008, the New York City Council enacted a local law that prohibits chain stores and those larger than 4,000 square feet from keeping their outside doors propped open while operating an air conditioner or central cooling system.
The council had the city’s power grid and the environment in mind. The practice of leaving doors open while air conditioners are running can increase a building’s electricity usage by 20 to 25 percent, according to the Long Island Power Authority. During the summer months, that raises peak power demands and puts local utilities at greater risk of power shortages.
As for the environment, “10,000 square foot business that leaves just one door open can… release 2 tons of unnecessary carbon dioxide into the air,” Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer said in a statement last week, citing a Con Edison number. Carbon dioxide emissions from human activities are one of several factors raising global temperatures and sea levels.
Brewer urged owners and managers of street-level businesses to keep their doors and windows closed while running air conditioners and called for the Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) to intensify its enforcement of the law in light of last week’s heat wave. She did so a week after DCA Commissioner Julie Menin announced an education and outreach campaign encouraging businesses to “Shut the Front Door!”
Fines on Small Businesses Drop Sharply
Josh Dawsey | Wall Street Journal
New York City slashed the total amount of fines to small businesses by more than half in fiscal 2015, focusing on warnings instead and addressing a long-standing complaint that it had taken a too-strict approach in the enforcement of consumer laws.
For the fiscal year that ended June 30, the city wrote $15.7 million in fines, down from $32.5 million a year earlier. The city issued 11,923 violations in fiscal 2015, compared with 19,409 the previous year, according to city data.
As a candidate, Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city should be more lenient in writing fines because it had been too aggressive in raising revenue off small businesses—particularly in outer boroughs—for what he characterized as trivial violations.
“If a bodega was selling peaches, and they didn’t have individual pricing on every single can, they were fined per can for a very large multitude of cans,” said Julie Menin, the Department of Consumer Affairs commissioner. “We’re trying to distinguish where there is consumer harm and where there isn’t. There were onerous fines for very minor infractions.”
Ms. Menin said the city, under Mr. de Blasio, has written more fines for violations such as selling cigarettes to minors and expired medicine.
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