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A lawsuit brought by the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade against the city for its plan to create a new class of “outerborough” taxicabs was amended on Friday, adding City Councilman Lew Fidler as a plaintiff in the case.

The trade association, which represents the owners of nearly 4,000 taxicabs, has also requested a preliminary injunction to prevent the city from issuing the new medallions before the court decides on whether or not the plan – known as the HAIL Law – is unconstitutional and in violation of the city’s agreement with existing medallion owners.

“I have been against the plan to provide outer borough taxi service from the start, as it is a ‘solution in search of a problem,” Fidler states in his affidavit. “In my 10 years as a City Council member, I have never gotten a call asking me why a citizen can’t hail a cab on the streets of Marine Park.”

The affidavit goes on: “I am a Plaintiff in this action, however, not merely because the HAIL Law is a bad policy, but because the HAIL Law is unconstitutional. The HAIL Law violates New York City’s right to Home Rule. Most fundamentally, it interferes with the City of New York’s right to regulate taxicabs and liveries and the City Council’s right to decide when to issue new medallions. Instead, the State Legislature has set regulations for livery cabs and has transferred the right to issue new taxicab medallions to the Mayor.”

According to a press release from the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade, their legal challenge rests on the following arguments:

• The bypassing of the “home rule message” that has been provided by the New York City Council for every other taxi medallion bill but was ignored for reasons of political expediency.
• Further relinquishment of traditional and constitutionally protected City Council powers to the Mayor with regard to the issuance and regulation of medallions.
• The violation of the “exclusive privileges and immunities” clause which is meant to, among other things, prevent one exclusive group of people from unfairly benefiting financially from a City issued asset – in this case livery hail permits.

Source: mikealex/Flickr

The city’s plan to roll out a new class of taxi to serve neighborhoods in Brooklyn, northern Manhattan and other areas poorly served by yellow cabs, is now heading to court, courtesy of a lawsuit filed by a lobbying group representing the largest yellow medallion taxi fleets.

The lawsuit, filed yesterday in New York State Supreme Court by the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade, claims that the outerborough street hail livery plan, passed into law by Albany legislators in Feburary, violates the rights of medallion owners who paid for exclusive rights to pick up street hails in New York City.

The proposal would create a new class of taxi medallion for up to 18,000 livery drivers, giving them the right to pick up street hails in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and northern Manhattan – areas previously underserved by yellow cabs that clog the city’s financial and tourist areas. It also permits the city to issue 2,000 new yellow taxi medallions.

The privileges for livery cabs will unfairly reward a culture of bad behavior from livery cabbies who “poach” street hails from yellow cabs, the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade claims, and will hurt the livelihood of yellow cab owners who will now have to compete with the new livery class as well as 2,000 new yellow cabs.

“The street hail livery rules are unconstitutional, irresponsible and unconscionable,” said Ron Sherman, president of the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade. “How can the City of New York sell medallions to thousands of individual owner-drivers and small businesses, promising them the exclusive right to pick up street hails, only to take that right away in one destructive piece of legislation?”

The group is also claiming that the process in which the legislation was enacted was unconstitutional, violating a “Home Rule” procedure, in which legislation affecting only one locality can only be passed in the state legislature once the local legislative body has given its stamp of approval. There was no City Council vote on the issuance of new medallions, and no public hearing.

“How can the City do this without a single public hearing, without the authorization of the City Council, and without a single economic study on its effects on this industry comprised mostly of immigrants who have pursued the American dream by working hard, saving their earnings and playing by the rules?” Sherman asked.

What do you think? Is this legislation that will hurt the business of yellow cab drivers? Or will the bill provide service for areas where the yellow cabs were not serving anyway?

After less than three months, City Smokes (2695 Coney Island Avenue) has closed for good, following a lawsuit filed yesterday by New York City that the roll your own cigarette business was skirting tax laws. A similar store in Sheepshead Bay has told Sheepshead Bites that he, too, is being threatened by the city.

Lawyers for New York City filed suit against the operators of City Smokes, and a second roll your own cigarette shop in Staten Island yesterday, threatening to collect back taxes for the tobacco sold on premises.

City Smokes is one of several new shops cropping up around the five boroughs that allow patrons to buy loose tobacco, paper and filters, and then use in-store machines to roll them. Since they claim they’re only selling loose tobacco, the industry exists in a legal grey zone, since loose tobacco is taxed at a lower rate. A standard pack at such a location could cost as little as $2.95.

The city, however, doesn’t think it’s so grey. If customers are leaving the store with rolled cigarettes, they argue, then they’re purchasing rolled cigarettes, and patrons should be taxed at the full rate.

“These legal actions are part of our ongoing efforts against businesses that think they can invent loopholes to skirt New York City’s tough cigarette laws,” Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo told Daily News.

The city also claims that these shops “cause a public nuisance” by selling cigarettes that have not been certified as “fire-safe” as required by New York State law.

The city previously forced two similar shops – one in Manhattan, the other in Staten Island – to close down in December after threatening to take them to court for back taxes.

A second Sheepshead Bay roll your own cigarette shop is also facing pressure from Bloomberg administration lawyers to close down. The operator of Green Leaf Smokes at 1326 Sheepshead Bay Road told Sheepshead Bites he received a cease and desist letter informing him the city will commence legal action against them in the event of non-compliance.

He declined to be quoted on the matter, but noted that he received the letter two weeks ago and has given it to his lawyer to determine an appropriate response.

An area resident went on an “antigovernment rampage”  in Downtown Brooklyn last Thursday, vandalizing 13 cars, including that of Borough President Marty Markowitz, his senior adviser and several judges.

The Post reports:

Alex Breytman, 46, was arrested Thursday afternoon in a state supreme court garage on Adams Street. The Ocean Parkway resident, believed to be emotionally disturbed, had on him a knife and a bottle of Zip Strip paint remover.

He was charged with 13 counts of criminal mischief. Each car suffered about $250 in damage, the sources said.

Breytman lives in an apartment building on Ocean Parkway, near Neptune Avenue. And, apparently, he has a history of instability.

Around this time last year, Breytman was in court suing a lawyer who previously represented him in a landlord-tenant dispute. The charges? Well, no one really figured that out, since they were presented in a slew of rambling “invectives,” according to Gothamist. Breytman bombarded his former attorney Donald Schecter with legal filings and letters, seeking more than $20 million, and accused him of anti-Jewish discrimination in the vein of “Gabble antiseptic rant against Jew in Germany.”

The Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice overseeing the case, Arthur Schack, interpreted that as a reference to Hitler’s minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels, and ultimately ordered Breytman to stop suing his former lawyer.

Enraged parents from the overcrowded Intermediate School 303 in Coney Island are taking immediate legal action to stop a similarly cramped charter school from moving into their building, 501 West Avenue at West 5th Street, the Daily News is reporting.

Worried that an additional 270 students from Coney Island Prep, located inside the Carey Gardens public housing project at 2315 Surf Avenue, will not only cause the school to “lose all the ground it’s made up after a 2004 reorganization,” but parents also fear that “it will disrupt programs for 750 kids who attend I.S. 303, Rachel Carson High School and a school for students with special needs already located in the building.”

Department of Education officials plan to move 270-seat Coney Island Prep because the two-year-old charter is outgrowing its space in a community center at the Carey Gardens public housing project.

Butt and other IS 303 parents have appealed to state Education Commissioner David Steiner to stop the DOE’s plan on the grounds that it will disrupt programs for 750 kids who attend IS 303, Rachel Carson High School and a school for students with special needs already located in the building.

IS 303 is a once-troubled school that recovered from a state-mandated overhaul in 2004 to earn A’s and B’s on recent city progress reports.

Butt and other parents believe the city’s plan will ruin the comeback by eliminating a schedule where students spend much of their time in a single classroom — with teachers moving from class to class.

The stakes are equally high at Coney Island Prep, which has been housed in an eight-room space that is so tight students have to eat lunch at their desks.

“It’s painful to even think about staying. Our kids deserve access to a traditional public school building,” said Jacob Mnookin, executive director of the charter school.

 

Remember this idiot, who tore up a parked car because he didn’t know how to handle the plow?

If a snow plow truck damaged anything that you own in the wake of the December 26 storm, including your home, your car, or your self, you may receive compensation from the city if you haven’t already. According to Gothamist, the city has paid out $729,677 to people whose homes, cars, or selves were damaged by city crews responding to the snow.

Oh, but the city is far from done. Not even halfway done, actually. So far, the city has only paid 297 of the 842 claims.

Hopefully, those who suffered damages already filed their claims, since they had to be in by this week to meet the 90-day post-storm deadline. Obviously, most involve damaged vehicles or damaged property. However, the Gothamist found out that 65 have claimed personal injury. Some were cases where family members died because ambulances couldn’t reach them in the snow. Perhaps the price tag on this thing will encourage a better response?

One month after the tragic bus accident that killed a 4-year-old boy, Manhattan Beach’s civic organizations are grappling with outraged parents from P.S. 195. But as frustration mounts, the likeliest catalyst for change may not be the civic organizations that have worked for years for traffic safety, but from a lawsuit filed by the victim’s mother.

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Courtesy of davidsonscott15 via Flickr

by Eitan Kahan

As a slew of lawsuits fill the docket claiming cops are being forced to meet quotas on arrests and summonses, Governor Paterson signed a tough anti-corruption bill into law, making such activity illegal.

The move was met with shock from NYPD brass and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who expected the bill to be vetoed instead. Prior to the signing, Bloomberg wrote to Paterson, “This legislation could seriously impair the effective management of police personnel and resources throughout the state.”

Apparently, Paterson disagreed.

Ahead of the bill’s passage, the NYPD leadership has been swooning from the most prominent lawsuit, brought by Officer Adrian Schoolcraft. He claimed widespread corruption in the highest reaches of the NYPD, specifically relating to the secret establishment and enforcement of quotas for issuing summonses and arrests.

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