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City Hall Protesters Rally for Rent Control

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

February 27, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

Hundreds of placard-waving tenants rallied outside City Hall yesterday to denounce landlords and politicians and demand renewal of threatened state rent protection.

The tenants, worried that state lawmakers will allow the laws on more than a million city apartments to expire in June, applauded as housing advocates accused State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno (R-Rensselaer), Gov. Pataki, Mayor Giuliani and other officials of favoring landlords.

“Landlords have claimed for years that rent control and rent stabilization have made it impossible for them to make what they call reasonable or adequate profit. This is sheer baloney,” Bob Grossman of SRO Tenants United told the crowd at City Hall Park.

The rally was the first major protest by Showdown ’97, a coalition of tenant organizations fighting Bruno’s threat to let the state rent laws expire on June 15. The laws regulate how much landlords can charge for lease renewals and vacated apartments.

Bruno has called for a two-year transition to a free-market rent system. Only elderly, disabled and low-income tenants would keep rent protections under Bruno’s plan.

But the Democratic-controlled Assembly and several Republican lawmakers from New York City districts are battling to extend the current laws.

The tenants called on other state lawmakers to support the fight. Carrying sheets and placards that read “Keep Rent Protection,” the crowd of about 750 joined in chants of “Tenants united will never be defeated.”

Bruno spokesman John McArdle scoffed at charges that the majority leader is beholden to landlord groups, who have contributed tens of thousands of dollars to Senate Republicans. He said Bruno “has been calling for rent decontrols for the last 10 years” on the ground that the laws perpetuate an unfair system.

Jack Freund, a spokesman for the Rent Stabilization Association, which represents most of the 25,000 owners of the more than 1 million rent-stabilized housing units in the city, criticized the tenant activists.

“Rent regulations have been a disaster for New York City’s economy and its renters. It’s time to phase out the system in a responsible manner,” Freund said.

But Jenny Laurie, director of the Metropolitan Council on Housing, said that “landlords are full of crap” for battling to strip tenants of their rights under the law.

February 27, 1997
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PUSH TO LIFT TATTOO BAN; City Council votes for body art

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

February 26, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

New Yorkers may soon be able to get openly what they’ve been getting illegally for 35 years — tattoos.

The City Council yesterday passed a law that would lift the official though little-enforced 1962 ban on tattooing.

Councilwoman Kathryn Freed (D-Manhattan), who sponsored the law, said it was absurd for the city to continue pretending that the increasingly popular trend of body art did not exist.

“This way we actually put in regulations so that the artists are protected, and the public at large is protected,” Freed said. “People are going to do it, so you might as well regulate it to safeguard the public.”

The city enacted the ban amid fear that the needles used in tattooing could trigger a hepatitis epidemic. Despite the law, tattoo parlors have continued to operate and city health officials have looked the other way.

The City Council measure, which requires mayoral approval, would replace the ban with a new licensing system.

Before setting up shop, tattoo artists would be required to take a city Health Department course on infectious disease prevention. They would also have to pass a Health Department exam before they would qualify for a license. The license, good for two years, would cost $100.

Tattoo artists found guilty of operating illegally would face fines ranging from $300 to $1,000.

Tattoo artists at the Council meeting, where the proposed licensing system passed by a 38-to-7 vote, said they were happy to gain municipal legitimacy. But some contended that the licensing system would not safeguard the tattoo-craving public.

East Village tattoo artist Tom Murphy complained that the law will not require inspections of tattooing parlors to make sure that they use sanitary and safe body-decorating procedures.

The city Health Department, while endorsing the move to lift the ban, opposed mandatory inspections. Health officials said inspections would be too expensive and time consuming at a time when the city faces more serious health threats.

Health Department spokesman Fred Winters said agency officials would also prefer regulating the tattoo industry through the health code instead of through an amendment of city administrative laws.

Mayor Giuliani said he would consider all sides in the debate before deciding whether to sign the law.

Original Story Date: 022697

February 26, 1997
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STING HAS SHARP EDGE; 43 of 73 stores sell box cutters to kids

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

February 23, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

Kids working undercover bought box cutters in stationery and hardware stores across the city in open violation of a law barring sales of the dangerous blades to youngsters, officials said yesterday.

The Department of Consumer Affairs sent the kids into 73 stores in a four-day sting last week to buy the box cutters — tragically, weapons of choice in the city’s schools.

“The results are troubling,” said Consumer Affairs Commissioner Jose Maldonado.

Forty-three of the stores sold the cutters without checking their customers’ identification — and 14 of them were openly displaying the blades, also in violation of the law.

The guilty stores include giant chain stores like K-Mart and F.W. Woolworth as well as small neighborhood stores, officials said.

Willie Meistelman, a manager at Barneys Hardware Store on Sixth Ave. in Manhattan, complained that the Consumer Affairs operation was a setup because his underage customers were all accompanied by adults.

“It’s the adults who bought the box cutters,” he said.

Local Law 80, enacted two years ago, makes it a misdemeanor for merchants to sell box cutters to minors or display them openly and for students to carry them on city school grounds.

But the law has proved difficult to enforce. Police could only move in if they received a complaint about a violation at a specific location, and Consumer Affairs, which licenses and inspects many of the stores, had no power to cite them for violations.

That began to change last year after the Daily News found box cutters in open display at Rite Aid stores. Embarrassed, the chain pulled the blades from its shelves across the city.

Mayor Giuliani then ordered a crackdown — and Staples, the national office supplies chain, was one of the stores found to be selling the cutters alongside school supplies.

Consumer Affairs was also given the power to inspect specifically for violations of the box cutter law, with the ability to fine stores up to $500 for each violation and even revoke a store’s license, Maldonado said.

As a result of last year’s crackdown, Staples and Rite Aid stores were on the list of 30 “good stores” that Consumer Affairs released yesterday.

February 23, 1997
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LIVOTI BOUNCED IN SAFIR CRACKDOWN; Commish orders profiles of too-tough cops

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

February 22, 1997
by MICHAEL O. ALLEN and JOHN MARZULLI, Daily News Staff Writers

Police Commissioner Howard Safir yesterday vowed tougher monitoring of cops accused of brutality after he fired a controversial Bronx officer whose use of an illegal choke hold led to a man’s death.

Safir canned Officer Francis Livoti for violating departmental regulations in the 1994 Bronx struggle that ended with the death of Anthony Baez.

Livoti, 37, the target of 15 civilian complaints over 13 years, was supposed to be under a strict watch by police supervisors at the time of his struggle to subdue Baez.

But the death of the 29-year-old guard showed that the system used to monitor officers hit with multiple complaints was “somewhat inadequate,” Safir admitted.

He ordered police prosecutors to draft profiles of cops accused of more than five violence or abuse complaints so a special board can decide whether the officers require monitoring, counseling, re-training or transfer.

“This department will never tolerate an officer who is abusive or brutal,” Safir said.

He also ordered a review of Sgt. William Monahan, Livoti’s supervisor on the night of Baez’ death. Monahan has not been disciplined, although he was present throughout the struggle.

Police Deputy Commissioner of Trials Rae Koshetz blasted Monahan as a “disgracefully lackadaisical supervisor” in her decision urging that Livoti be fired after she convicted him of using the choke hold at a departmental hearing.

Safir announced the tougher monitoring after he acted on Koshetz’ recommendation and fired Livoti, a move that strips the 15-year veteran of his pension. In an unusually harsh attack on a cop with strong police union ties, Safir ripped Livoti for “inexplicable aggressiveness” and lack of remorse.

The ouster marked one of the final chapters in an emotion-charged case that sparked angry demonstrations in the Bronx, pleas for justice from Baez’ family and a controversial acquittal of Livoti at a criminal trial where he was charged with criminally negligent homicide.

“I’m satisfied with the decision, but nothing is going to satisfy me. Nothing. I lost my son. That doesn’t change,” the victim’s father, Ramon Baez, said yesterday.

Livoti, who still faces a federal civil rights investigation and a civil lawsuit by the Baez family, could not immediately be reached for comment on the firing. But his lawyer, Stuart London, said the ex-cop would appeal the decision.

At the 46th Precinct where Livoti served, tight-lipped officers called the firing a foregone conclusion.

A senseless chain of events produced the tragedy. Baez and three brothers were playing touch football in the early morning of Dec. 22, 1994, in front of their University Heights home.

The struggle began after Livoti, angry that the ball had struck his patrol car, raged at the brothers for ignoring his orders to halt the game.

Livoti’s “inexplicable aggressiveness during what most reasonable officers understand to be a routine street encounter escalated events into violence, and the death resulted,” Safir said.

Livoti applied the choke hold — banned by the Police Department in 1993 — in a struggle when Baez protested Livoti’s arrest of his brother David for disorderly conduct. Livoti testified during the departmental trial that his arm only brushed Baez’ neck.

Safir caustically said Livoti “remains incapable of accepting responsibility for his actions. He blames others for his ordeal.”

City Medical Examiner Dr. Charles Hirsch, however, estimated that Baez was choked for more than a minute. Although Baez suffered an asthma attack during the clash, Hirsch determined that the ailment played a minor role in his death.

Mayor Giuliani praised Safir for the ouster. He also conceded that Livoti should have been booted long ago — but blamed the inaction on prior police administrations.

“Should they have kept him on the police force for as long as he was on the police force? Absolutely not,” Giuliani said.

Original Story Date: 02/22/97

February 22, 1997
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Council Plunges Into Swimsuit Issue

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments
Friday, February 21, 1997
by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

New Yorkers yearning to breathe free and stroll the city’s streets in bathing suits can take heart it may soon be legal.

As part of a legal spring cleaning, the City Council is eying repeal of outdated taboos in the city administrative code, including the bathing suit ban.

“We obviously don’t want anyone to be arrested for walking around in their bathing suit,” Council Speaker Peter Vallone (D-Queens) said. “Although it may not be proper attire, it shouldn’t put you in prison.”

Nonetheless, Chapter 1, Section 10 of the administrative code stipulates that it is “unlawful” to wear a bathing suit on the street unless you are near a city park or beach.

Anyone found guilty of wearing a bathing suit without covering their torso from shoulders to midthigh faces a $ 10 fine, up to 10 days in jail, or both.

Although the Police Department crackdown on quality-of-life offenses has not targeted alleged swimsuit violators, Vallone said the Council wants to take the law off the books, just in case. Besides, other city rules already cover most common-sense bathing suit no-nos.

“You couldn’t walk into a restaurant and ask to be served,” Vallone said. “That would be a violation of the health code. That could also be covered under the indecent exposure law.”

Also up for possible repeal are three outdated city laws that govern medical services. They include a misdemeanor penalty for anyone found guilty of improperly transferring medical records from a defunct medical facility to another agency.

The Council is also expected to abolish the penalty for anyone convicted of placing an incorrect street number on his or her building. Offenders instead would be charged with a civil violation punishable by a $ 25 fine that increases by $ 5 per day if the sign isn’t corrected.

The Governmental Operations Committee has scheduled a hearing on the changes next week. If approved, as expected, the revisions would take effect by summer. The changes are part of an ongoing effort to weed out archaic laws that may have made sense in an earlier age, but don’t necessarily apply to the 1990s.

For instance, the Council is now hard at work researching a law that prohibits public bathing. That prohibition that may join the scrap heap along with previously repealed laws that barred women from baring their navels in public and barbers from using “powder puffs or neck dusters” on customers.

February 21, 1997
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N.J. Wins Battle In Sewage-Dump War

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

February 19, 1997
by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer
New York retreated in the Great Sewage War yesterday after tough talk from New Jersey Gov. Christie Whitman.

After a day of counter-charges, the city and state agreed to at least a year-long delay in plans to release 560 million gallons of raw sewage into the East River — a plan Whitman (below) warned would trigger environmental damage.

“We are going to agree to go through further review process to make certain that there are no questions about this, to make certain that it is perfectly safe,” Mayor Giuliani said.

Under the agreement, city, state and federal environmental officials will conduct months of study on the consequences of a massive sewage release. That means the release will be delayed until at least next winter, because the dumping is allowed only in cold weather.

The concession, announced after renewed threats of a federal lawsuit by Whitman, avoided a showdown that would have pitted her against Gov. Pataki and Giuliani — fellow Republicans.

Whitman claimed victory, saying the decision would help preserve New Jersey shellfish beds.

“It is utterly medieval when you talk about putting this kind of raw sewage into the waterways,” Whitman said.

The battle erupted last week, after New York State environmental officials approved the city’s plan for shutting down a lower East Side sewage treatment plant for repair work on two valves.

The shutdown would have released the massive quantity of untreated sewage into the East River over four days, the first release of its kind since 1987.

State and city officials initially said the release would cause few environmental problems.

Whitman, however, warned that the sewage would flow through Lower New York Harbor to the Sandy Hook and Raritan Bay area, damaging shellfish beds there.

Before the agreement, city officials accused their cross-Hudson counterparts of maintaining a sewage double-standard. They said the New Jersey communities of North Bergen, Woodcliff, New Brunswick, Perth Amboy and Rahway have dumped untreated sewage in the shared waterways for many years.

Whitman spokesman Pete McDonough said the city’s planned sewage release would have been far more massive than anything from New Jersey.

Original Story Date: 021997

February 19, 1997
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Rudy Probes His Own Campaign

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

February 17, 1997

by BOB LIFF and MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writers

Mayor Giuliani’s reelection campaign has launched internal audits to determine whether any corporate contributors gave donations that exceeded the $7,700 limit allowed by the city’s public campaign finance law.

Campaign officials disclosed the reviews after the Daily News reported that a company that landed a lucrative recycling contract gave $77,500 to Giuliani’s reelection drive after concluding the deal.

Campaign treasurer John Gross described the audits as a regular process designed to insure that Giuliani does not violate campaign finance laws as he runs for a second term.

Based on an initial review, Gross and Giuliani said they did not believe any other givers had contributed amounts above the $7,700 limit.

“I’m not aware of it,” Giuliani said yesterday, adding that his campaign “returns money any time there are questions.”

The campaign pledged to refund all of the contributions made by Pratt Industries U.S.A. after the Daily News reported that the firm got a no-bid city contract to build a $250 million recycling plant on Staten Island. The deal calls for the firm to process up to half the discarded newspaper and wastepaper in the city.

Giuliani yesterday dismissed the company’s excess contributions as “technical violations” of the campaign finance law, which gives taxpayer-funded contributions to candidates who agree to abide by limits on their private fund-raising.

The law bars companies and subsidiaries they control from giving a total of more than $7,700 to a single candidate who accepts public campaign funds.

The News reported on Saturday that the firm and nine subsidiaries began making contributions to Giuliani in January 1996, two weeks after reaching the recycling deal with the Giuliani administration.

City officials said there was no connection between the contract award and the political contributions, and Gross said the campaign discovered the overpayments and initiated refunds without any prompting.

“Anyone who would like to investigate our finances can have at it,” Gross said.

But three Democrats vying for the nomination to challenge Giuliani in November called for an investigation of the Pratt contributions.

The three, Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer, Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger and the Rev. Al Sharpton, charged that the contributions raised questions about Giuliani’s fund-raising.

“This looks like the worst kind of government quid pro quo since the corruption scandals that United States Attorney Giuliani uncovered nearly a dozen years ago,” Ferrer said.

Giuliani fired back, accusing the Democrats of using the issue for political purposes.

Original Story Date: 02/17/97

February 17, 1997
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Swiss Ask Jews For Help With Fund

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

February 14, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

The Swiss government yesterday invited the World Jewish Congress to Switzerland next week to help administer and distribute a fund set up for aged Holocaust survivors.

It was the first gesture by the Swiss, under increasing pressure to compensate Holocaust victims for looted World War II assets, to reach out to Jewish groups.

Ambassador Alfred Defago, the Swiss consul general in New York, offered the invitation at a hearing conducted by the state Assembly’s Standing Committee on Banks at the New York Bar Association in Manhattan.

The hearing was held to examine how the state can help heirs of victims reclaim assets deposited in Swiss banks during the war.

Israel Singer, secretary general of the Jewish Congress, accepted the invitation and called it a “turning point” as he addressed the hearing, led by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) and Assemblywoman Aurelia Greene (D-Bronx), the committee’s chairwoman.

Elan Steinberg, executive director of the World Jewish Congress, said the invitation moves the two sides “from confrontation to cooperation.”

“The trouble is that the investigation into the looted assets can take many, many years, and the survivors are aged,” Steinberg said. “So that their immediate desperate needs can be taken care of, this fund has been established.”

Switzerland has been weathering accusations from Jewish groups for 18 months that the nation was more than a neutral bystander during the war and that its banks hoarded up to $7 billion left in the country for safekeeping by families who later died in Nazi concentration camps.

The Swiss government established a fund — which now stands at $71 million but is expected to grow as banks, industries and individuals contribute to it — to meet the needs of elderly Holocaust survivors and heirs of Nazi victims.

American and Swiss officials will attend a meeting of the Jewish Congress today to discuss the disbursement of the fund.

Sen. Alfonse D’Amato (R-N.Y.), who has been pressuring the Swiss about the assets, has more recently softened his stance after, for instance, accusing Swiss Foreign Minister Flavio Cotti of “arrogance and contempt for history” for announcing that the Swiss government would administer the fund.

Yesterday, D’Amato said he is reassured that Switzerland will do the right thing about the fund, especially now that Jewish groups will be involved.

February 14, 1997
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Poll: Wild About Mayor, Not Rudy

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

February 12, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN and FRANK LOMBARDI, Daily News Staff Writers

City voters soundly approve of Mayor Giuliani’s job performance and would reelect him in a walk, even though they aren’t wild about his personality, according to a new poll.

The Quinnipiac College Poll showed 62% of voters approved of the first-term Republican’s performance as mayor, while 32% disapproved and 6% were undecided. That’s the best showing for Giuliani since the Quinnipiac mayoral surveys began nearly two years ago.

With the help of his high job approval rating, Giuliani would rout any of five potential Democratic challengers in a head-to-head match, the survey showed. That includes former Mayor David Dinkins — who was to announce today if he would take on Giuliani for a third time.

Dinkins, Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer and Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger would lose to Giuliani by at least 20 percentage points if the election were held now, the poll showed.

Giuliani would beat Dinkins 55% to 34%, the poll found. Ferrer would lose 53% to 33%, and Messinger would lose 54% to 34%, it showed. The remaining Democratic contenders, Brooklyn City Councilman Sal Albanese and the Rev. Al Sharpton, would fare even worse.

Still, the survey wasn’t all good news for Giuliani. It found voters split on his hard-charging personal style — with 43% describing him as likeable and 52% disagreeing.

“I can deal with that,” said Giuliani, noting that the poll gave him high marks for leadership and getting things done.

While cautioning that poll results fluctuate, Giuliani said “it always feels a little better [to be ahead] by 20% than to be behind by 20%.”

The survey showed Giuliani has not bridged racial and gender gaps as he tries to expand the narrow margin he won over Dinkins in 1993.

While white voters gave him 77% approval on job performance, that dropped to 52% among Hispanics and 34% among blacks.

Among male voters, 71% gave Giuliani thumbs up on job performance, compared with 55% among women.

White New Yorkers were evenly split on his personal style; 48% liked it and 47% didn’t. Hispanics were equally split, with 49% approving and 48% disagreeing. Among black voters, 29% liked his personality and 66% did not.

“New Yorkers like the way the mayor does his job,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac College Polling Institute. “But they don’t think he’s a likeable guy.”

The poll of 845 voters was conducted Feb. 3 to 9 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

Original Story Date: 021297

February 12, 1997
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Rudy Hedges Bets On Riverboat

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

February 9, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

Mayor Giuliani yesterday said he could support riverboat gambling under some conditions but would have to study its effect on neighborhoods near where the boats dock.

The mayor also said he would need to be assured the venture is free of organized crime — and that the city pockets a large share of the profits.

Giuliani, responding to an idea by City Council Speaker Peter Vallone, (D-Queens), said the city should work out “an acceptable fee” that would help it “at least make back the amount it is going to cost us in the burdens that it creates.”

But, Giuliani cautioned, the city has yet to hear public debate on the issue and how it would affect communities.

“The assumption is that you are going to make so many dollars back that it’s worth the inconvenience,” Giuliani said. “I believe that’s probably true but . . . we should spend more time looking at it.”

Vallone said the City Council, which studied the idea about a year ago, will move ahead with the plan.

“It is going on now,” Vallone said, pointing out that gambling boats sail from Sheepshead Bay and Manhattan’s West Side. . “Why would we not want to capitalize on it?”

The City Council is set to vote this week on a bill that would set up a commission to regulate Liberty I, which docks in Sheepshead Bay.

Giuliani said he favors gambling but fears the city might get into a situation like that of Atlantic City, which sees little in casino revenues while the State of New Jersey gets about $320 million annually from taxes on gambling.

The Council’s Finance and Economic Development committees will hold hearings on the issue within months.

Original Story Date: 020997

February 9, 1997
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