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WEEK OF SEPTEMBER
6-12 2018
At Picture the Homeless’s #FreeToPee event in Madison Square Park, August 28th. Photo courtesy of Picture the Homeless
A CAMPAIGN FOR PUBLIC TOILETS COMMUNITY Homeless advocates and politicians call for automated bathrooms to be moved out of warehouses and onto the streets BY RICHARD BARR
In recent years, there has been considerable discussion and debate about how New York City handles what have been referred to as “lowlevel crimes or offenses.” Should turnstile-jumping be prosecuted as a crime, or treated as an offense met with a summons, or not punished at all, because many turnstile jumpers simply do not have the $2.75 fare? What about smoking or possession of small amounts of marijuana? Some of the district attorneys have stopped prosecuting this as a criminal offense, and the NYPD has just said it will be issuing summonses, rather than making arrests, for this “offense.” One of these behavioral issues is
“public urination,” for which the penalty has transitioned, in many cases, from a criminal citation to a summons, or civil ticket, which can range from $75 for a first offense to $350 for a third, after which it can go back to being a criminal citation. It’s generally taken as a given that people should “just wait until they get home.” But what if they have no home, as is the case with tens of thousands of New Yorkers? What if they, (men or women) have bladder issues, or (men) have prostate issues, which may make waiting until they get home not an option? And what about public toilet options (once much more available), that would make untenable waiting unnecessary? The advocacy group Picture the Homeless (PTH) honed in on these issues at a press conference last Tuesday near an automated public toilet just outside Madison Square Park. Though the City ordered 20 of these toilets in 2006, only 5 were
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City Council Member Ben Kallos with preschoolers at the Manhattan Schoolhouse on the Upper East Side last year. He’s sponsoring a bill, likely to pass, that would bolster nutritional standards for beverages served to kids in thousands of city restaurants. Photo: Office of Ben Kallos
STRIVING TO STOMP OUT SUGAR HEALTH City Council fast-tracks a new bill to bolster children’s diets, rein in soda consumption — and alter the way 10,639 restaurants in Manhattan conduct business
Childhood obesity will stop being the norm when children are given meal options that are all healthy.” City Council Member Ben Kallos
BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
It doesn’t foretell the decline and fall of sugar. It doesn’t immunize New Yorkers from heart disease. It won’t end the scourge of obesity either. But new legislation has been quickly advancing in the City Council that
backers believe would take a huge step toward promoting those goals. The bill does this simply by elevating the nutritional standards for the beverages included in meals served to Downtowner
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FOR HIM, SETTLING SMALL CLAIMS IS A BIG DEAL presided over Arbitration Man has three decades. for informal hearings about it He’s now blogging BY RICHARD KHAVKINE
is the common Arbitration Man their jurist. least folks’ hero. Or at Man has For 30 years, Arbitration court office of the civil few sat in a satellite Centre St. every building at 111 New Yorkers’ weeks and absorbed dry cleaning, burned lost accountings of fender benders, lousy paint jobs, and the like. And security deposits then he’s decided. Arbitration Man, About a year ago, so to not afwho requested anonymity started docuhe fect future proceedings, two dozen of what menting about compelling cases considers his most blog. in an eponymous about it because “I decided to write the stories but in a I was interested about it not from wanted to write from view but rather lawyer’s point of said Arbitration view,” of a lay point lawyer since 1961. Man, a practicing what’s at issue He first writes about post, renders and then, in a separatehow he arrived his decision, detailing blog the to Visitors at his conclusion. their opinions. often weigh in with get a rap going. I to “I really want whether they unreally want to know and why I did it,” I did derstood what don’t know how to he said. “Most people ... I’d like my cases the judge thinks. and also my trereflect my personalitythe law.” for mendous respect 80, went into indiMan, Arbitration suc in 1985, settling vidual practice
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MANHATTAN'S APARTMENT BOOM, > PROPERTY, P.20
2015
In Brief MORE HELP FOR SMALL BUSINESS
The effort to help small seems to businesses in the city be gathering steam. Two city councilmembers, Robert Margaret Chin and Cornegy, have introduced create legislation that wouldSmall a new “Office of the within Business Advocate” of Small the city’s Department Business Services. Chin The new post, which have up told us she’d like to would and running this year, for serve as an ombudsman city small businesses within them clear government, helping to get through the bureaucracy things done. Perhaps even more also importantly, the ombudsman and number will tally the type small business of complaints by taken in owners, the actions policy response, and somefor ways to recommendations If done well, begin to fix things. report would the ombudsman’s give us the first quantitative with taste of what’s wrong the city, an small businesses in towards important first step fixing the problem. of for deTo really make a difference, is a mere formality will have to the work process looking to complete their advocate are the chances course, velopers precinct, but rising rents, -- thanks to a find a way to tackle business’ is being done legally of after-hours projects quickly. their own hours,” which remain many While Chin “They pick out boom in the number throughout who lives on most vexing problem. said Mildred Angelo,of the Ruppert construction permits gauge what Buildings one said it’s too early tocould have the 19th floor in The Department of the city. number three years, the Houses on 92nd Street between role the advocate She Over the past on the is handing out a record work perThird avenues. permits, there, more information of Second and an ongoing all-hours number of after-hours bad thing. of after-hours work the city’s Dept. problem can’t be a said there’s with the mits granted by nearby where according to new data jumped 30 percent, This step, combinedBorough construction project noise Buildings has data provided in workers constantly make efforts by Manhattan to mediate BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS according to DOB of Informacement from trucks. President Gale Brewer offer response to a Freedom classifies transferring they want. They knows the the rent renewal process, request. The city They 6 “They do whatever signs Every New Yorker clang, tion Act go as they please. work between some early, tangible small any construction on the weekend, can come and sound: the metal-on-metal or the piercing of progress. For many have no respect.” p.m. and 7 a.m., can’t come of these that the hollow boom, issuance reverse. owners, in business moving The increased beeps of a truck has generto a correspond and you as after-hours. soon enough. variances has led at the alarm clock The surge in permits
SLEEPS, THANKS TO THE CITY THAT NEVER UCTION A BOOM IN LATE-NIGHT CONSTR NEWS
A glance it: it’s the middle can hardly believe yet construction of the night, and carries on full-tilt. your local police or You can call 311
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children in city restaurants. It creates a “default beverage option” in which eateries serving kids are required to offer drinks that don’t contain added sugars or sweeteners. This is a big deal. The measure is largely aimed at the fare of fast-food chains — the Happy Meal that McDonald’s has sold its customers since 1979, for instance. But it applies to all 24,000 dining spots in the five boroughs, including 10,639 in Manhattan, that receive a letter grade from the city’s Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene.
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