SHEEPSHEAD BAY'S ONLY INDEPENDENT NEWS BLOG

A photo from Smith’s drivers license.

ONLY ON SHEEPSHEAD BITES: Emergency responders left Shaun Smith to die because she is transgender, claims a lawsuit brought by the victim’s mother. The Sheepshead Bay attorney representing her says it’s part of a disturbing national trend of discrimination against transgender patients.

The allegations stem from a June 15, 2012, incident, when Smith’s mother, Jenette Cox called 911 after Smith – a transgender woman who was born a man – went into diabetic shock. When EMS responders arrived on the scene and found the victim to be transgender, they failed to render services, Cox alleges.

“This is somebody who needed urgent care and didn’t get it, and basically what stopped them were breasts on an originally male body,” said Ilya Novofastovsky, the Sheepshead Bay attorney representing Cox in the malpractice and discrimination case against the NYPD and the FDNY, which operates the EMS.

Novofastovsky said discrimination against transgender people by emergency responders and medical workers is a nationwide problem that causes a delay or absence of care, and leads to additional suffering and even death for the patient.

Court papers state Smith, who had no history of diabetes, died of diabetic ketoacidosis, which results from a shortage of insulin.

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Source: Rodrigo Moraes via Wikimedia Commons

Lea Shimunov, a 47-year-0ld Sheepshead Bay housewife, broke her teeth when she was scarfing down some peanut M&Ms, and is filing a suit against the monolithic Mars candy corporation in Brooklyn Supreme Court, according to a report in the New York Post.

After purchasing a medium-sized bag of peanut M&Ms at the Duane Reade located at 2931 Avenue U in December 2011, Shimunov allegedly bit into a “petrified peanut,” painfully shattering several teeth in the process.

“There was either a foreign object that was made into a M&M, or it may have been a petrified peanut,” lawyer Robert Berkowitz told the New York Post.

I thought M&Ms were supposed to melt in your mouth… not break your jaw.

Source: foodbanknyc.org

City Councilman Lew Fidler, Assemblyman Alan Maisel and three other pols from around Brooklyn filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the city’s Human Resources Administration (HRA) and its commissioner Robert Doar, claiming that the city’s decision to limit emergency distribution of food assistance was “arbitrary and capricious,” and violated law.

The suit argues that HRA’s decision to limit Disaster Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (DSNAP) to 10 zip codes and two partial zip codes had no rationale, and caused additional suffering for Sandy victims in Canarsie and elsewhere. The federal government identified 82 zip codes hit by the storm, and the city should have opened the program to anyone in those zip codes, they argue.

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A cropped version of the photo Dranovsky allegedly posted to a prostitution website.

If you’re trying to spice up your love life, it might not be wise to have a kinky photo session in this day and age, because, you know, the internet.

A young Russian immigrant with a student visa, Ruzilya Khusnutdinova, learned the hard way when scandalous pictures of her surfaced on an online sex escort website without her knowing. Khusnutdinova, who claims that her ex-boyfriend, Brighton Beach resident Vladimir Dranovsky, took the pictures on a romantic getaway. According to the New York Post, she is suing Dranovsky for $8 million in emotional distress, $4 million for defamation, and another $4 million for violating New York Civil Law, for a grand total of $16 million.

Dranovsky, who runs a dental practice at 2101 Bay Ridge Parkway in Bensonhurst, told the Daily News, “She’s just probably making it up because she wants to get some money.”

Besides allegedly distributing Khusnutdinova’s pictures to a sex escort website, Dranovsky has also been accused of making false reports to immigration authorities about Khisnutdinova’s immigration status, physical abuse, and for holding his ex’s passport and other immigration documents for ransom. According to courthousenews, Khusnutdinova claims that Dranovsky “was threatening her with physical harm, and that he can ‘deport’ her.”

In the matter of Khusnutdinova’s passport, Dranovsky was charged with grand larceny, but pleaded guilty to a lesser charge last February.

A process server representing the owners of a proposed bar and restaurant in Gravesend that was denied a liquor license interrupted Community Board 15′s September meeting last night, serving papers for a $180 million lawsuit that claims the Board conspired to defame the owners, and discriminated against them based on their Russian roots.

Pleasure Island, also known as Galaxy, located at 816 Avenue U, was denied a liquor license by the State Liquor Authority in 2011 – and again by the Community Board earlier this year – after locals learned of plans to reactivate a bar that some said was a hotbed for underage drinking and rowdiness. The lawsuit claims, though, that those neighbors were misled by numerous community leaders in a smear campaign orchestrated by Community Board 15 Chairperson Theresa Scavo, possibly for discriminatory reasons.

“She’s saying these people aren’t Jewish enough,” Susan Bernstein, the plaintiffs’ attorney, told Sheepshead Bites. “She wants what she wants in that neighborhood. A Community Board isn’t a despotic agency that can decide what business can open and close. They spread intentional lies about the two individuals involved.”

Keep reading, and view the lawsuit documents.

Image courtesy of the offices of Mayor Michael Bloomberg

The hotly-debated plan to sell 18,000 permits for cabs and 2,000 new medallions for wheelchair-accessible cabs to service the five boroughs has crashed.

Last Friday, a judge rejected the Taxi and Limousine Commission’s “Five Borough Taxi Plan,” which would have allowed livery cabs to pick up street hails in upper Manhattan and the outer boroughs.

The Granny Smith-colored cabs were the apple of Mayor Bloomberg’s eye. They were set to bring in a much-needed $635 million, although other sources have listed the revenue as high as $1 billion, for this year’s budget.

“The reality is we now have a $635 million hole in our budget because we lose projected revenue from the sale of taxi medallions,” said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. “More importantly, New Yorkers beyond Manhattan, the people who live in our boroughs, are going to be treated like second-class citizens.”

The plan would have opened up cab service to all five boroughs for the first time ever. However, State Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron said the city violated the state constitution by circumventing the City Council and getting Albany to approve the taxi plan instead of its own legislature.

The medallion-holding yellow cab drivers are thrilled the judge ruled in their favor.

“We applaud the judge’s decision and we believe we are going to find a solution but not a solution that hurts two industries, that divides two industries,” said Fernando Mateo of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers.

City Hall plans to appeal the decision.

Source: pubadvocate.nyc.gov

Several local businesses routinely express frustration to Sheepshead Bites about the number of fines the city has doled out, whether it be for trash, health inspections or obscure signage regulations. And, according to the complaints we get, it seems inspectors of businesses are unfamiliar with many of the regulations and sometimes apply them inconsistently.

But though it may seem like the city is cracking down and issuing more fines as the city struggles with the economic recession, data on the number of fines given out has been hard to come by.

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio is trying to fix that. He has announced his plans to sue Mayor Michael Bloomberg and city agencies in order to force them to reveal information regarding the amount of fines given, and the income generated from those fines.

Currently, there are 20 agencies involved in small businesses-related regulations. According to an analysis performed by de Blasio’s office, cited by the New York Times, fines collected by these organizations have jumped from $485 million in the 2002 fiscal year, when Bloomberg was elected, to a whopping $820 million in this past fiscal year.

De Blasio told the paper that he has been pushing six of the offices involved in regulating small businesses to release information about these fines for several months now. He said that the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the Department of Consumer Affairs told him they were in the process of compiling a response. The Transportation Department, Sanitation Department, Buildings Department and Finance Department failed to reply to his requests.

“We’re just not going to stand for it anymore,” de Blasio told the paper.

Marc LaVorgna, Bloomberg’s spokespman said the city will respond to de Blasio and provide this information soon. He argued that the main source of rise in fines over the past 10 years is driving tickets. The fines have increased for parking tickets and moving violations, while more tickets for running red lights have been distributed, as the city installed more cameras by traffic lights.

Source: Google Maps

Hi-Tek Car Wash at 2981 Coney Island Avenue was sued on Wednesday by 17 of its workers, who claimed they were not paid minimum wage or properly compensated for overtime, according to the Daily News.

The immigrant workers, which included current and past washers, filed a federal lawsuit against their employers for bridging their legal rights.

The Daily News said that the workers stated that they received less that $7.25 an hour, including tips. Workers also told the Daily News that they frequently labored for more than 40 hours a week, yet they did not receive legally mandated overtime pay.

Aaron Morales Romero, 23, a former Hi-Tek employee, said to the Daily News that he worked at Hi-Tek for five years but quit in March because he couldn’t support himself making only $5.25 an hour, in addition to a small amount of tips.

Gary Pinkus, a manager at Hi-Tek, claimed that allegations were false.

“They [campaign organizers] are brainwashing employees to take their side. That they are not paid properly is not true,” said Pinkus to the Daily News.

The Daily News said workers filed the suit with assistance from WASH New York, a campaign run by two nonprofit organizations: Make the Road New York and New York Communities for Change. WASH New York is also supported by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union.

Source: Omnibus, Uris via Wikimedia Commons

New York State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron put the brakes on city’s plan to create a new class of taxis to serve neighborhoods in Brooklyn, northern Manhattan and other areas.

The judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking Mayor Bloomberg from implementing the city’s Outer Borough Livery Street Hail and Taxi Medallion Plan, otherwise known as the HAIL Law, which was put into effect on June 1.

If enacted, the law would allow 18,000 livery cabs to pick up street-hail passengers outside central Manhattan and bring in about $1 billion to the city’s budget.

The lawsuit was brought on by the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade.

“Obviously, anything that affects New York City affects the state in which it is situated, and just as obviously non-New York City residents can (and do, in droves) spend time in New York City.  But, generally speaking, these facts cannot satisfy the Home Rule requirements or nothing would be left of the rule but the exceptions, ” wrote Justice Engoron in his ruling.

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Madison H.S. (Source: Schools.nyc.gov)

A 36-year-old Madison High School teacher stands accused of having sex with a 16-year-old pupil on and off school grounds, as well as sharing marijuana with the youth.

The charges were revealed yesterday when a lawyer for the student’s family filed a $10 million notice of claim, charging that teacher Erin Sayar had sex with a 16-year-old she privately tutored between eight and 12 times last year, and also offered him pot from a stash kept on school grounds.

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