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Saggy Pants Okay in Bloomberg’s Nanny State

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:15:01 +0000

Don’t be deceived by his crisp uniform; this man is not the fashion police. The notoriously regulatory Mayor Bloomberg—whose administration hasn’t hesitated to tell New Yorkers what they can eat , drink , and inhale —is refusing to use his power to protect citizens from the ubiquitous eyesore of saggy pants. After a judge threw out a disorderly conduct summons issued to a Bronx man because of his sagging trousers, Bloomberg weighed in on the divisive issue yesterday. But while other politicians, most notably State Senator Eric Adams, haven’t been afraid to make a stand on sagging , Bloomberg isn’t showing leadership. “I don’t know why people dress the way they dress,” Bloomberg told reporters yesterday. “I don’t judge people on how they look or how they dress. I judge people about how they act… Some dress the way I do. Some dress differently. I am certainly not the style police, much to my girlfriend’s annoyance… I don’t think the government should be in the business of telling people what they should wear.” We don’t know who this man is or what he’s done with Mayor Bloomberg, but it seems pretty obvious the powerful Saggy Pants lobby had a role in this.

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Saggy Pants Okay in Bloomberg’s Nanny State

City Moves to Nix Street Alarm Boxes

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 15:05:00 +0000

Flickr user emilydickinsonridesabmx Just as we were wrapping our heads around losing the V and W trains and the Crown Vics , the Bloomberg administration is r enewing efforts to get rid of another city classic : streetside emergency-help boxes. They’ve asked a federal court to lift an injunction that would let them remove 15,000 of the boxes from the streets, claiming that they’re obsolete in an age of cell phones. But advocates say that removing the boxes could discriminate against the city’s deaf residents. The boxes cost about $9 million a year to maintain, and the city says that about 9 out of 10 of the calls are false alarms. They also claim that the city’s deaf residents can use payphones and a special tapping code to tell 911 whether they want to report a police or fire emergency. But lawyer Robert B. Stulberg says pay phones are so scarce that it would be ridiculous to rely on them in the case of an emergency. He told the Times , “Requiring the deaf and hearing-impaired to tap on public pay phones to summon fire or police services would be wholly ineffective, discriminatory, and irresponsible.” A law professor added, “In an emergency, are people going to have both the time and the presence of mind to be able to able to think about a tapping system?” In order to get rid of the boxes, the City Council would have to repeal a law stating that there must be one box every four blocks. Bloomberg has asked the Federal District Court in Manhattan to lift an injunction granted in 1996 which blocked a similar plan put into play by Giuliani. So, has anyone ever had to use one of these for an actual emergency, or are you one of the 9 out of 10 that just wants to prank the system?

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City Moves to Nix Street Alarm Boxes

Bloomberg Sets Sights on Mr. Softee

Sat, 19 Jun 2010 12:40:16 +0000

Flickr user Triborough When asked about new rules that would limit art vendors and food trucks around crowded city parks, Mayor Bloomberg seemed to have one enemy in mind: the beloved/ infuriating Mr. Softee. Fran from Queens called into the Mayor’s radio show this week, complaining of the incessant jingle blaring on her street until as late as 10 p.m. He told her, “We’re going to go after and explain the law to this Mr. Softee.” It’s on. Artist Robert Lederman filed a lawsuit in an attempt to block the vendor restrictions from going into effect on July 19th, but Bloomberg said vendor crowding is starting to become a problem. “The little stand is now getting to be these enormous trucks with generators,” he said. “We are moving stores into the street. And they sit there and they park and they take up parking places and they block traffic.” The City Council recently proposed a bill that would revoke vending permits for trucks issued three parking tickets in a 12 month period, which is pretty common for most food trucks. The Wafels & Dinges truck owner said the bill “sounds like a Stalinist sabotage of the industry.” But Bloomberg showed little sympathy for truck vendors. He said, “You have so many vendors that they infringe on people’s ability to go down the walkway and to have a quiet place to reflect and that kind of thing. Everybody else has rights too.” Because the best place to relax and reflect has always been the sidewalk outside of that McDonald’s on Union Square.

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Bloomberg Sets Sights on Mr. Softee

New Bill Could Be Big Trouble for Food Trucks

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 17:30:59 +0000

Wafels and Dinges ( Oliver 62’s Flickr ) City Council members Jessica Lappin (from the UES) and Karen Koslowitz (from Queens) have introduced a new bill that would, according to Midtown Lunch , “give the Department of Health authority to suspend any vending permit issued to a truck with two parking tickets (i.e. feeding the meter or idling) in a 12 month period, and revoke the permit of a truck that receives three parking tickets in a 12 month period.” The Council members say their constituents are fed up with food trucks idling all day and occupying precious parking spots, but food truck owners insist the bill would put them out of business. The bill [ read it here ] concerns only food trucks (not food carts ), and Lappin tells the ML , “The piece of it that gets under my skin is the feeding of the meter. These are public streets and nobody has the right to use them exclusively. People were willing to look the other way, until it was being abused. It’s against the law but clearly the penalty [parking tickets] is not severe enough to make people obey the law.” The owner of the Wafels & Dinges truck claims he gets an average of 3 parking tickets a month (despite “a relentless effort to avoid them”), and he’d be unable to operate if this bill becomes law: “Revoking [a permit] at 3 per year sounds like a Stalinist sabotage of the industry.” There will be a public hearing on the sabatoge next Wednesday, June 16th at 10 a.m., and the Street Vendors Project is urging everyone who likes food from idling trucks to sign a petition . Last year the Bloomberg administration increased the fines for idling near schools, and the City Council later voted to raise the fine for idling cars outside of school zones from $5 to $250.

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New Bill Could Be Big Trouble for Food Trucks

Bloomberg’s "Bromance" With Jeb Bush

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 11:36:26 +0000

Bush and Bloomberg in 2007 (NYC Mayor’s Office) According to the Post , “insiders” are wondering why Mayor Bloomberg and former Florida governor Jeb Bush are so buddy-buddy. A “City Hall veteran” says, “There’s something going on there. This is a lot more than, they’re on the same side when it comes to education.” Bush is one of dozens of names being mentioned as a 2012 or 2016 contender, prompting even more speculation (one Republican consultant: “I’m not saying it’s going to happen, but it would be a hell of a ticket”). At last week’s GOP convention, Bush boasted , “Mayor Bloomberg is one of the most interesting guys I’ve ever met in my life,” while Bloomberg said, “If there’s anyone I would want on my side waging all those important battles and helping provide the government Americans deserve, it is” Bush.

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Bloomberg’s "Bromance" With Jeb Bush

Bloomberg Answers 311 For 100 Millionth Call

Mon, 10 May 2010 18:16:18 +0000

NYC Mayor’s Office Twitter Though he may have been MIA during this weekend’s ferry crash, Mayor Bloomberg was ready and willing to serve his city’s information line during a milestone call today. The 311 line, created by Bloomberg in 2003, continued growing in popularity this year, receiving over 18.7 million calls. That boosted the line’s overall number to 100 million, and Bloomberg decided to celebrate by easing one operator’s burden and answering a call. Though the actual 100 millionth call was answered by operator Sion Nathan on Sunday morning, Bloomberg picked up the phone today , answering, “Good afternoon, thank you for calling 311, this is Mike.” It’s unclear whether the caller knew just who “Mike” was, but filed a complaint about garbage pickup. Bloomberg passed the phone to another operator to handle. Bloomberg also tweeted that 311’s busiest day was February 25th, 2010 with 269,000 calls, most about the 20 inches of snow.

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Bloomberg Answers 311 For 100 Millionth Call

Tea Party Hates Bloomberg’s Bomb Suspect Speculation

Tue, 04 May 2010 17:27:50 +0000

Before the Times Square car bomb suspect was arrested , Mayor Bloomberg told Katie Couric last night that he thought the suspect acted alone, “If I had to guess, twenty five cents, this would be exactly that. Homegrown maybe a mentally deranged person or someone with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something. It could be anything.” Of course, now that the suspect is a Pakistani man , Bloomberg’s words are getting the Tea Partiers all angry. Members of the Tea Party movement allegedly circulated an email last night , demanding that Bloomberg apologize for his “biased” statements against Americans. The email claims that by suggesting the suspect wasn’t acting as a terrorist, “he was trying to blame the Tea Party movement and the patriotic Americans who stood up and fought against this usurpation of our rights.” The email continues, “The bomber is a naturalized citizen from Pakistan, with ties to the terrorists in Pakistan. Instead of apologizing for getting it wrong, or insulting mainstream, patriotic Americans, Bloomberg’s response has been to say that ‘bias will not be tolerated.’ Mr. Mayor, how about your bias against the majority of Americans in this country?” The Tea Partiers encouraged members to call the Mayor’s office, or to take to the internet and tag their complaints #Apologize on Twitter. Twitter has since been flooded with demands for apologies, with one Washington State woman saying , “Bloomberg should be ashamed of himself. Boy, do I miss Giuliani.” Naturally, once the liberals got news of the protest they took to Twitter themselves with requests like “Mike Bloomberg should #apologize for that burning smell that comes from most hot dog carts. It’s un-American.” He’s doing his best to stop it !

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Tea Party Hates Bloomberg’s Bomb Suspect Speculation

Video: Monkeys Are Collecting Brit Ballots In NYC

Tue, 04 May 2010 17:17:45 +0000

This is weird: a London-based ad agency in SoHo is offering British citizens a unique opportunity to cast their ballot in the national elections via a monkey . BallotMonkey.org offers a free pick-up and delivery service of ballots through their monkey helpers, like a 10-month-old Japanese snow macaque named Yoko, who arrive at your home or office with a trainer to collect your vote. According to the Daily News , the site is hoping “to drum up support for the May 6 vote, seen as the closest election in Britain in nearly 40 years.” One 27-year-old ex-pat, Lizzie Stupak, tried out the service and told the paper, “It’s kind of a kooky campaign, but I think it’s great.” Plus, the agency even pays for shipping the ballots overseas. As for the monkeys (yep, Yoko has coworkers), they are rented from All-Star Animals in New York. And according to the end of this video, they like to eat ballots.

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Video: Monkeys Are Collecting Brit Ballots In NYC

Geithner Says Wall Street Reform Good for City

Sat, 01 May 2010 17:10:00 +0000

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner allegedly told Mayor Bloomberg in a meeting that the Obama Administration is going ahead with its Wall Street reform package, and that the new reforms would be good for the city. One official told the Daily News , “People are angry and until those people, including New Yorkers, see real reforms, they are going to stay angry.” Bloomberg, however, believes the reforms would hurt Wall Street workers, and discourage companies from doing business in the city. He is particularly upset at two measures which would put restrictions on the types of trades big banks could do and limit the size of financial companies. However, Geithner insisted they would push forward, and one source said Bloomberg “wants to work with us.” Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser confirmed the sentiment, saying, “There’s a lot we support and a few things we don’t, and we remain committed to helping come up with a final bill that protects consumers and New York City.” Bloomberg previously urged Washington officials not to regulate Wall Street, but his requests fell on deaf ears.

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Geithner Says Wall Street Reform Good for City

Thousands Line Up For 300 Hotel Job Openings

Sat, 01 May 2010 16:40:00 +0000

Over 2,500 people waited on line yesterday for a shot at 300 jobs open in the new Intercontinental Hotel in Times Square, which will open in July. The line started on East 48th Street at Lexington Avenue, went up to 49th Street and over to Park Avenue, then back toward Lexington on the other side of the street. One single mom told the Post , “I’m so desperate; it’s never been so hard.” Hotel officials were hopefully about the applicants. General manager Drew Schlesinger said, “It’s been a wonderful crowd, a lot of well-dressed and well-mannered people. When the economy is booming, you don’t get this kind of crowd.” He said about 90% of the applicants were currently out of work. Melissa Lucia, a native of Italy with a political science degree, echoed her father’s sentiments about opportunity in America. “My father would talk to me about America; he said here you become what you want. I thought this was a richer nation, a better nation, but it has the same problems.”

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Thousands Line Up For 300 Hotel Job Openings