"Birth tourism house" is quite illegal

From PIX11:

An unlicensed day care facility where three infants and two adults were stabbed allegedly catered to Asian mothers lured to the United States by laws granting citizenship to anyone born on American soil, a New York law enforcement official said Saturday.

Investigators believe the foreign women would give birth at the facility before returning to their home country and applying for US citizenship, the law enforcement official said. The return allows them to remain in good standing with authorities back home and, at the same time, claim to have a direct relative in need of care in the United States.

"If they're playing it right, they go back so that they don't get a negative status," the official said. "Then they come back."

An underground "birth tourism" network stretching from the United States to China has sprung up in recent years to cater to growing numbers of Chinese mothers who travel stateside to give birth, according to affidavits filed by federal law enforcement officers.

Federal agents have carried out "birth tourism" raids as part of larger criminal investigations targeting US companies that have netted millions helping pregnant Chinese women fraudulently secure visas and other services.

The residential facility in the Flushing section of Queens was used mostly by Chinese women who give birth and stayed there before returning to China, a law enforcement source said Friday.

What the hell?

From NBC:

A 52-year-old day care worker allegedly stabbed five people, including three baby girls no more than a month old, at an overnight facility in Queens early Friday, and cops say they found a butcher knife and meat cleaver at the scene.

A 3-day-old girl and a 1-month-old girl were stabbed in the stomach; a 20-day-old girl had a laceration to her ear, chin and lip. All are in critical but stable condition, authorities said. Two other people, a father of a child at the day care and another woman who worked there, were also stabbed at the Flushing center just before 4 a.m. Friday. The woman was stabbed eight times.

Police say the 52-year-old woman was found unconscious on the basement floor of the day care center on 161st Street with her left wrist slashed in what police say was a self-inflicted wound. She is in police custody at an area hospital.

Fresh Meadows day care center permit may be revoked

From the Queens Tribune:

The Great Sunshine Daycare, slated for 172-03 67th Ave., will create chaotic traffic patterns and safety issues for the residential community as parents of as many as 282 children rush to drop off their children, residents said at a Nov. 3 press conference with state Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside).

“Parents come, they park illegally, they drop off their kids—sometimes they park in somebody’s driveway, sometimes they double-park or they pull into the site,” Avella said. “Imagine 282 parents, 282 cars.

Nobody’s against a daycare center in principle, but the city of New York should be making sure that these types of facilities go in appropriate locations.”

Traffic in the area is already hectic during school dismissal times with PS 173 just a few blocks away, and the new daycare could cut into property values of the surrounding homes, Avella argued.

Currently, the daycare’s future is uncertain. The facility can be legally built at the property under the current zoning for the area, according to the city’s Department of Buildings. A permit was issued on Feb. 3, but an audit of the project led to a notice to revoke the permit on Nov. 1. The agency took issue with the daycare’s planned placement of a driveway and rooftop recreation area, a spokesman said.

Fresh Meadows concerned about oversized day care center

From the Queens Chronicle:

About 75 concerned Fresh Meadows residents, many of whom are senior citizens, on Tuesday vehemently opposed the construction of Great Sunshine Daycare on 67th Avenue and 172nd Street saying, despite the center’s name, the site will cast a dark cloud over the suburban neighborhood’s already busy intersection, just one block from PS 173’s playground, and steps from MS 216.

Resident Cliff Hamburger — who presented at a town hall meeting held to discuss concerns about the proposed development — explained potential traffic congestion.

“You can’t unload a school bus in less than a minute,” Hamburger said at the meeting in PS 173’s auditorium.

The drop-off route for the day care will follow the already congested 67th Avenue, and exit from 72nd Street.

“[Or], the mother will have to drop off a toddler, take the child in, get him/her settled, resulting in idling engines,” Hamburger said, adding that staff will need “street parking, weekly deliveries and garbage collection.

“The DOT has agreed to finally conduct a traffic study,” Hamburger added. “So pending that, there is a stop-work order in place for the facility.”

The facility will be equipped with nine classrooms for approximately 290 students, and 30 staff members. It’s also proposed to have 11 parking spaces on the ground floor, one elevator and two staircases.

Rob Agnello, another presenter, discussed sewer capabilities for the facility, which currently only has one at 36 inches in diameter.

Day care site not ideal

From the Queens Chronicle:

To some, the two-story Great Sunshine Day Care building under construction on 67th Avenue and 172nd Street is not a bright idea.

The suburban Flushing intersection is one block from PS 173’s playground and two from the school itself by the western edge of Fresh Meadows. Some in that neighborhood think that the combination of traffic from the school and the day care center, at their worst times, will together be problematic.

Fresh Meadows resident Bill Anello told the Chronicle that traffic from the school causes cars to be “double-parked in the morning and triple-parked all along 67th Avenue.”

Moreover, Anello says that the area already has plenty of day care centers. And he added that there is another one planned at the former Carol School Supply building.

According to Anello, the day care center will serve 290 kids. It is not clear where he heard that — when the Chronicle followed up, he did not immediately respond.

Michael Tang, a lawyer who has discussed the day care plan with community members, did not immediately respond when the Chronicle asked how many people — employees or children — would be at the business.

Stop work order at day care with cellar conversion

From the Queens Chronicle:

The Department of Buildings issued a stop-work order pursuant to its intent to revoke permits and approvals for a construction project at a Happy Dragon day care center in Flushing on July 7. Its decision comes little more than two weeks after land-use expert Paul Graziano and state Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside) warned that the project — which includes a cellar conversion — could be dangerous for the children.

The building is located at 30-04 146 St.

In an interview last month, Graziano said he had never heard of a day care center legalizing a cellar and expressed concern that using the building’s cellar would put the children’s lives at risk.

City falsified lead testing records

From the Daily News:

City workers falsified records to claim day care centers had tested for lead in drinking water when no tests were actually performed, a city controller audit released Friday found.

Starting in 2008, the city was supposed to make sure all day care centers tested drinking water for lead. But Controller Scott Stringer's auditors found that by 2011, the city Department of Health & Mental Hygiene had dropped the ball.

DOHMH — the agency that's required to inspect all 11,000 child care centers in New York City annually — had more or less given up on the task.

"We have supervisors who told employees to falsify these tests and they never bothered for four years to go back and do the testing," Stringer said. "This is outrageous. Neglecting this lead test is a gamble on the health and safety of our kids."

At first, Stringer found, the city tried to enforce the lead test requirement. But by 2011, inspectors were finding the providers weren't keeping up with the testing requirement.

Soon DOHMH supervisors were instructing underlings to simply mark "tested" at sites that had not be tested. This allowed the city to renew or approve a new license for day care providers without actually testing for lead in drinking water at their sites.

Under pressure to keep child care centers open, the agency's bureau of child care management directed staff to claim that the agency had received lead water test results, regardless of whether such tests had been received.

Pol wants to grade day care centers

From WPIX:

How safe is your child's day care? It may get a little easier to find out.

A report released Thursday looked at nearly 2,300 group day care centers across the city for the past three years.

It's just the tip of the iceberg to a much larger problem: Kids are the ones that are in danger.

The report found more than 18,000 violations across the city since 2013.

Hundreds of day care centers are repeat offenders and still open for business.

State Senator Jeff Klein proposed legislation that would create letter grade system for city day cares, the same as how New York restaurants are graded with signs.

The senator showed video where day care officials repeatedly lied to undercover parents about having a good track record– when in truth they didn't.

Terrorist worked at preschool

From the Daily News:

One of the two Queens women accused of plotting a homemade bomb strike on American soil worked at a preschool, where officials remained tight-lipped Friday after her arrest on terrorism charges.

Asia Siddiqui, a 31-year-old native of Saudi Arabia, was behind bars Friday, locked up with her best friend and accused sister in jihad Noelle Valentzas, 28.

“We have no comment at this time,” said a worker at 82nd Street Academics in Queens on the day after FBI agents arrested the two Al Qaeda-linked suspects at their homes.

The busts followed a two-year undercover probe, with the terrorist sympathizers accused of amassing bomb-making materials and studying bomb-making manuals while plotting their strike.

The self-identified citizens of the Islamic State — the terrorist organization responsible for beheading Western hostages — have billed themselves as “some bad bitches.”

Drugs sold out of illegal cellar apartment beneath daycare center

From Eyewitness News:

A man was arrested for allegedly dealing drugs out of the basement of a Queens building that also houses his father's day care.

Police sources say 24-year-old Michael Gomez and his associate, 23-year-old Selestino Rodriguez, were taken into custody during a raid at the building on 88th Avenue in Woodhaven around 5 a.m. Thursday.

Detectives learned that Gomez was selling the drugs out of his basement apartment, below where his father operates a licensed day care, My Precious Moments Daycare, on the upper floors.

Undercover officers had made numerous drug buys in the basement apartment before making the arrests.

Marijuana, Molly, ecstasy pills and more than $2,500 in cash were seized.

(Correction: He was selling drugs out of his illegal cellar apartment which has had a vacate order since 2008.)

Illegal cellar business in burned Astoria building

From Astoria Post:

Seven people, including 5 firefighters, suffered minor injuries after a fire broke out in a two story building in Astoria in the early of hours this morning, according to an FDNY spokesman.

The fire started at 1:04 am at 25-88 41st Street (near 28th Avenue), and when firefighters arrived on the scene the house was ablaze.

How lovely.

There were a litany of complaints about this property and 8 open DOB violations.

Lots of day care centers are under the radar

From the Queens Courier:

A little known law may be keeping some Queens day care centers from operating legally, The Courier has learned.

Permits from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), a certificate of occupancy from the Department of Buildings and a fire inspection pass are needed for city child care providers who fall under certain categories. These include those who look after three or more kids unrelated to them either in a private home or institution for more than three hours a day, on a regular basis.

But a less familiar rule requires these centers also give written notification to local precincts and fire departments within five days of receiving certifications, the agencies said.

“The day care centers are kind of off our radar. For safety reasons, we’d like to know where they are,” said Special Operations Lieutenant Daniel Heffernan of the 111th Precinct.

According to Heffernan, about 26 centers in the Bayside-based precinct are legally licensed with the city. The precinct’s list is still being updated, but only eight were registered with police as of press time.

Dead infant in Elmhurst

From the Queens Gazette:

Queens police officials are awaiting the results of tests performed by the city Medical Examiner to determine the cause of death of a 2-month-old girl who was found dead on November 17 inside a daycare center located at a dilapidated home in Elmhurst.

Police found the unconscious infant shortly before 9 a.m. on Saturday, in a daycare center located on the second floor of the home at 92-45 55th Avenue, authorities said.

Cops said Jennifer Zheng had a blanket over her head and was not breathing when she was found at about 8:45 a.m. in one of several cribs inside her babysitter’s home.

Emergency responders took the lifeless infant to Elmhurst Hospital Center where she was pronounced dead on arrival. There were no signs of trauma on the infant, police said.

Police alerted the city Department of Buildings (DOB) immediately after the child’s body was found to report a “possible illegal daycare” facility operating out of the home.

DOB officials shuttered two floors of the building owned by Wai Yee Chung shortly after the baby was found dead in the crib.

From the Times Ledger:

While Jason and other neighbors said they never witnessed any activity that would suggest an unlicensed daycare was being run out of the house, that is exactly what the NYPD told the city Department of Buildings, according to a complaint on file in a city database.

The complaint alleges that the business was operating on the second floor, where several cribs were found, the New York Post reported.

In response, the department issued a vacate order Saturday and a notice posted to the front door warned anyone who entered the second or third floors of the house might be arrested due to the floors being deemed “imminently perilous to life.”

The house is owned by Wei Yee and Kuo Ping Cheng, according to records from the city Department of Finance, and is only legally allowed to house one family.

But neighbors said at least two lived at the residence.

The side yard of the house was littered with construction materials, where a large Rottweiler dog paced between discarded bathroom fixtures, buckets of waterproofing liquid and a detached vehicle door.

Day care fraud charged

From NY1:

The owners of several day care centers in Queens are accused of defrauding the Department of Education out of more than $35,000.

A report released by the Special Commissioner of Investigation found that the owners registered at least 12 children who did not attend their programs and submitted false attendance forms and invoices to receive payment.

Commissioner Richard Condon is recommending that the DOE stop doing business with Nareesa and Saied Mohammed.

They own Nareesa's Day Care and The Beanstalk Day Care in Richmond Hill.

The findings were referred to the Queens District Attorney.

Fire inspector took bribes

From the NY Times:

A longtime New York Fire Department employee who supervised safety inspections of day care centers pleaded guilty on Friday to accepting thousands of dollars in bribes from operators who took part in a program that subsidizes day care costs for low-income parents.

The employee, Carlos Montoya, 54, entered his plea in Federal District Court in Manhattan less than a month after his arrest in a continuing investigation of what the authorities have said was a $1 million fraud and bribery scheme involving corrupt city employees and day care operators.

Mr. Montoya, who was responsible for certifying that day care centers complied with fire safety standards, admitted in court that he took money in exchange for creating fraudulent temporary certificates of occupancy for the centers.

When the judge, Paul G. Gardephe, asked whether he had accepted the payments with the intent of being “influenced or rewarded” with respect to his official duties, Mr. Montoya responded, “Yes.”

A federal prosecutor, Harris Fischman, told the judge that fraud amounting to tens of thousands of dollars could be directly attributed to Mr. Montoya’s part in the scheme.

FDNY inspector arrested for accepting bribes

From the NY Post:

A high-ranking FDNY safety inspector ignored safety violations at buildings housing day-care centers in exchange for bribes, the feds said yesterday.

Carlos Montoya — who formerly oversaw inspections of all city day-care centers — was arrested yesterday for the alleged misconduct, which included repeatedly certifying use of a Brooklyn warehouse for the temporary care of infants and children younger than 2.

He allegedly got at least $12,000 in payments from the center’s owner, who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges and is cooperating with the feds.

But Montoya, 54, failed to fully cover his tracks, and issued the bogus certificates with “basic errors that one would not expect to see,” such as misspelling the word “nursery,” court papers charge.

Montoya — who was bounced from his post after the city Department of Investigation uncovered the scam — also allegedly got paid $250 a pop to sign off on safety inspections at another center.

Lefrak city drug dealing day care center busted

From the Daily News:

Authorities took down a Queens drug ring that peddled pot, crack and Ecstasy out of a sprawling housing complex and a state-licensed daycare center for children.

Forty-six people ranging in age from 17 to 63 were pinched during a seven-month probe of drug dealing in LeFrak City, one of the nation's largest private housing complexes, Queens prosecutors said Friday.

The daycare center, which caters to children and infants as young as six weeks-old, is located within LeFrak City, home to some 15,000 residents.

"Dealers in this operation are alleged to have hit a new low: selling drugs out of a daycare center where hard-working parents drop off their children in the expectation that they will be shielded from harm - not caught up in it," said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.

Among those nabbed was an inspector for the city Taxi and Limousine Commission. Prosecutors say he unleashed a pit bull on cops when he was caught smoking a joint outside his apartment on 57th Ave. this week.

Undercover investigators made 14 drug buys in the Burke-Arthur Day Care Center, which is licensed to care for as many as a dozen children, ranging from infants to 12 year-olds.

Next door to the old Shaw Hotel...

"The building next to it which housed a Korean storefront church is knocked down. The property itself has a "for sale" sign in front." - anonymous

Looks like 30 apartments, 14 parking spaces and a day care "community facility". Always wondered how developers know what type of business they're going to rent it out to before it's even built. (Actually, they don't. They just put that down to get a larger FAR and then they convert it into something else and DOB does nothing.)

Day care limitations, only in Staten Island

From SI Live:

The City Council yesterday gave a break to Staten Islanders who are tired of oversized, out-of-character, parking-spot-stealing medical offices and day care centers sprouting up in their neighborhoods.

The Council approved new rules yesterday aimed at curbing the building of those facilities in residentially zoned areas here, and encouraging them to be built in commercial zones instead.

The legislation, which grew out of discussions between lawmakers, the Department of City Planning, Borough President James P. Molinaro and the Growth Management Task Force, passed the Council by a vote of 48-0.

All three of the Island's Council members, including Councilwoman Debi Rose (D-North Shore), voted in favor.

The measure unanimously passed the Land Use Committee earlier in the day.

Borough officials and residents have complained for years that the facilities, often added onto existing homes, are frequently expanded to the point that they dwarf and loom over the surrounding houses, destroying the character of neighborhoods.

Because the medical offices and day care centers were not required to provide on-site parking, visitors and employees often took up precious parking spots on surrounding streets, much to the chagrin of local residents.

There have also been safety concerns about children being dropped off and picked up in the street front of the day care centers.

Under the new regulations, new medical facilities in residential areas would be required to be on lots no smaller than 5,700 square feet. On-site parking must be provided, and owners will not be permitted to seek to have the parking requirement waived.

Day care centers would not be permitted on lots smaller than 10,000 square feet. Officials have said that this will cut down on the building of centers because lots of that size are scarce in residential neighborhoods.

Day care centers would also have to provide on-site parking for employees, and an on-site drop-off point for children.

I find it implausible that this is only a problem in Staten Island and not throughout the City.

Russians busted in day care scam

From the NY Post:

Seven city workers have been busted for allegedly taking cash and jewelry to help a ring of Russian day-care center operators scam more than $18 million in taxpayer money.

The scheme involved more than 30 day-care centers in Brooklyn and Staten Island run by a group that called itself "the Congregation," according to a complaint filed this morning in Manhattan federal court.

Alleged ringleader Liudmila Umarov and three co-defendants are accused of bribing workers at various city agencies to help them defraud a subsidy program for low-income parents.

The scam, which was uncovered by the city Department of Investigation, used the names of eligible kids gleaned from city records to get payments for services never actually provided.

The city workers also steered parents to send their children to centers run by the Congregation, and enrolled homeless-shelter kids in their programs, the complaint says.