Help stop idling

From NBC:

Vehicle idling in NYC is not only bad for the environment, it's also not strictly enforced, but now you can help enforce a decades-old law and get paid for it. The I-Team's Andrew Siff reports.

Police promise an intervention

From the Forum:

The commanding officer of the 106th Precinct this week told The Forum that his officers will soon meet with the owners/operators of the tractor trailers that seem to clog up both North and South Conduit avenues in South Ozone Park.

“We are aware of the situation and have visited the location,” Capt. Brian Bohannon said on Tuesday. “The trailers are moved frequently. We will sit down with management to discuss these issues.”

Residents have raised concerns about the problem in the past, noting the danger posed by the presence of detached trailers at busy intersections along both thoroughfares.

Hi-tech building enforcement happening

From the Daily News:

The non-union Rhode Island-based Gilbane is currently building all over the city, including Hudson Yards on the far West Side and an expansion of New York-Presbyterian Hospital on the Upper East Side. After the crowbar incident, the Department of Buildings searched its internal system to locate every Gilbane site in the city.

They found 14 sites, and over the span of four weeks, inspectors were able to gain access to 12. There they uncovered 49 hazardous violations and issued 13 partial or full stop-work orders at four locations.

At one, a Gilbane site in Hell’s Kitchen, where luxury condos are under construction, inspectors were forced to issue partial stop-work orders three times within a month. They also learned a worker at the site had been hospitalized in April after injuring his head while delivering sheetrock.

The Gilbane sweep is part of a new tech-savvy approach Buildings Commissioner Rick Chandler is taking to find and shut down dangerous job sites citywide. Currently the public can check the safety of a site via the department’s public records system by entering the site address. Looking at a contractor’s safety record at multiple sites is impossible.

Eight months ago, the department's chief of enforcement, Tim Hogan, began mining inspection data to find contractors with patterns of unsafe conditions.

Officials say Gilbane got the message. During the first week of inspections, 12 Gilbane sites produced 19 hazardous violations and six stop-work orders. By week four, the sweeps produced nine violations at six sites and only one stop-work order.

Schumer asks for more funding for opioid enforcement

From PIX11:

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer is calling for federal help in the fight against opioid addiction in New York.

Schumer is asking the Drug Enforcement Agency to provide the state with one of four special heroin enforcement teams being formed to combat the problem. The four teams are specifically dedicated to counteracting heroin trafficking and are sent to states that report heroin as the highest drug threat.

The Democrat says New York's heroin overdose death rate increased by 30 percent in 2015. New data show there was an average of four overdose deaths a day in New York City alone last year. That was double the rate two years earlier. New York City also is a major distribution hub.

Overall, 24 New York counties are considered High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas.

Don't open hydrants without a cap

From the Queens Gazette:

The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has launched its 21st annual crackdown on city residents who insist on opening fire hydrants without an approved “shower cap.”

DEP officials are sending teams of teens into local neighborhoods to educate New Yorkers about the dangers of illegally opening fire hydrants.

Illegally opened hydrants can release more than 1,000 gallons of water per minute, reducing water pressure and making it difficult for firefighters to battle fires, in addition to lowering water pressure to neighboring homes and buildings, DEP officials said.

Queens residents are urged to report illegally opened hydrants by calling 311 immediately, DEP officials said. Illegally opening a fire hydrant can result in a fine of $1,000, 30 days behind bars, or both, a law enforcement source said.

Going after AirBnBers is tough

From Crains:

In the three months since the state's anti-Airbnb bill went into effect, the city has issued fines on 139 listings. That leaves a mere 24,000 more to investigate.

Earlier this week the city announced two women forked over $1,000 each, one for renting out her pad in Trump Tower, the other, her place in a co-op building on the Lower East Side. They were the first hosts to pay up under the new state law banning advertising for home rentals of less than 30 days. But a staggering amount of New York listings remain on the Airbnb site.

The number of potentially illegal Airbnb listings was 23,639 as of April, according to data from the company, though a portion of those ads could be for a stay in a single-family home or another type of dwelling exempt from the legislation. But based on current rates, it would take the Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement 43 years to run down those potential violations.

Rather than go after every one, City Hall's goal likely is to fine enough hosts to discourage the illegal listings and have the numbers come down on their own. Thus far officials have focused on owners of multiunit building who essentially run illegal hotels by renting out multiple apartments for short stays. The mayor plans to add inspectors going forward.

At least for now, hosts with only one listing have a slimmer chance of being caught, and according to Airbnb's site, 96% of hosts fall into this category. Since they stand to earn $750 a week on average, paying off the fine might not prove to be much of a deterrent.

Illegally parked trucks are a menace to South Ozone Park

Hello.

I live in Queens and for a few years trucks have been illegally parking in my residential neighborhood, and nothing is being done about it.

Commercial trucks can’t stay on city roads between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m according to city law. I have gone to meetings at the police precinct, spoken to my community board and still nothing is being done, there are about 8-12 trucks that park over here daily.

They park in an intersection blocking a lane, they park on the sidewalk. But the most dangerous one of them all is they park right next to a school. Here are pictures of one that was parked for 4 days with out moving parked illegally next to a school blocking a fire hydrant, and bus stop for days I did a few different 311 complaints over the weekend and it's very alarming how nothing was done.

This truck was parked on 130th street and 150th ave next to an elementary school.

Those are a few 311 complaints where the police department determined police action was not necessary and the last pic is of a truck blocking and intersection on South Conduit Ave and you cannot see the oncoming traffic.

- Anonymous

NYPD cracks down on Jamaica trucks

In response to community complaints regarding tractor trailers operating off the designated truck routes, the following enforcement has been conducted by our TRAFFIC SAFETY OFFICERS. This enforcement was conducted between the dates January 15th, 2015 to June 19th, 2015.

On behalf of the 103rd Precinct, I would like to thank you, the community members of South Jamaica, for working with us on this issue.

Off Truck Route Summons Locations

· 99 Ave = 81 Summonses Issued

· 170 St = 58 Summonses Issued

· 175 St = 7 Summonses Issued

· 179 St = 4 Summonses Issued

· Other locations = 12 Summonses Issued

· Total Off Truck Route Summonses issued = 162

Sincerely,

Detective Marc Costa
Community Affairs
103rd Precinct
New York City Police Department
168-02 91st Avenue, Jamaica, NY 11432

Long Island town cracks down on illegal conversions

Parking scofflaws dealt with in Jamaica

From Cleanup Jamaica Queens:

At 164-22 South Road behind York College, an abandon car striped completely, sat in the driveway of a vacant house for close to a year, maybe more. I first came across this back in the summer of 2013 and of course reported it numerous times to no avail. Our elected leaders knew of this, our city agencies and other leaders in the community, but yet it sat an eyesore, every time another piece missing from it and garbage being dumped in or around it. As of March 8th, the vehicle had still be sitting there.

But in steps Jamaica's "The Untouchables" (Sgt. Cedillo, relatively new to the 103rd and his crew) this week and within one day of notifying Sgt. Cedillo, just like magic, the vehicle with no wheels vanished into thin air. Our leaders choose to do nothing for almost a year, yet Cedillo and his top notch crew, swooped in and in a blink of an eye, it was gone.

Team P/J applaud the efforts and tenacity of Sgt. Cedillo and his crew for doing what others choose not to do and bring back law enforcement in regard to these quality of life issues.

Cunningham Park truck problem

From the Queens Chronicle:

Residents are frustrated with trucks that won’t go away. Several 18-wheelers, some of which are used to transport cars, park on the north side of 73rd Avenue, between 210th Street and the Clearview Expressway, along Cunningham Park. The trucks come and go regularly, but they usually return.

Sometimes the line of trucks is merely an eyesore in a residential area, but when the Auburndale soccer league plays games on their Cunningham Park fields, the situation is downright dangerous. Since each truck takes up several spots, parents often double- and triple-park when they go to drop off and pick up their children. Traffic on that stretch of 73rd Avenue typically exceeds 40 miles per hour.

“It’s an accident waiting to happen,” Debbie Luongo, the league’s vice president, said.

Councilman Mark Weprin (D-Oakland Gardens) said that he has reported the trucks to the police numerous times and written several letters about the trucks, but the problem has persisted for over a year.

“It’s very infuriating,” Weprin said. “It is an issue and it annoys the heck out of me.”

A source from the 107th said the precinct receives complaints and has “issued summonses and taken initiatives,” but the trucking company pays the tickets because “it’s easier for them to pay the tickets than pay for storage.”

While the 18-wheelers and auto-transport trucks can be towed, the precinct said that it is difficult to store the trucks. The city only has a few tow trucks capable of towing such large vehicles.

Truck traffic continues along Grand Avenue

From the Times Ledger:

Large trucks continue to use Grand and Flushing avenues in Maspeth after the city Department of Transportation instituted a traffic plan last summer prohibiting the trucks from barreling through those streets, business owners on the commercial strip said Friday.

The bypass plan was designed to route trucks that enter and exit the Long Island Expressway around the commercial and largely residential portion of Maspeth. Instead of using Grand and Flushing avenues, the trucks now travel down 58th Street and travel up Maurice Avenue.

The plan, developed by the city Department of Transportation, was approved in July by Community Board 5 after nearly a decade of debate.

“They come by anyway, regardless,” said Al Elayni of Carpetorium Inc. & Decoration, at 64-12 Flushing Ave. “I haven’t noticed much of a difference.”

It's about time...

From Fox 5:

The Obama administration has extended its crackdown on employers of illegal immigrants, notifying 500 companies across the nation in recent weeks that the government will inspect their hiring records.

The surge in so-called silent raids is the first to occur in the government's new fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. In the year ended Sept. 30, the US audited 2,496 companies, topping the previous year's tally of 2,196.

The audits of employee records by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, can lead firms to lose large numbers of employees and face lower productivity and steep legal fees.

The audits can result in civil and criminal penalties. Companies can be fined, barred from competing for government contracts and be hit with criminal charges of knowingly employing illegal workers and evading taxes.

An ICE spokeswoman confirmed that employers across the US had been asked to turn over their I-9 employment eligibility forms and other documents to the agency.

ICE did not name the businesses being investigated.