Woodhaven's small businesses frustrated by and are suffering from city's opaque sign regulations

Queens Chronicle

 
“Jamaica Avenue looks like crap,” said Margie Schmidt, the second-generation owner of Schmidt’s Chocolate in Woodhaven.

The candymaker is not alone in her blunt assessment of the neighborhood’s main shopping street.
Stores along Jamaica have been pulling down their awnings and signs — many of them up for decades — to avoid thousands in potential fines from building inspectors who blitzed the neighborhood three years ago.

On the facades of stores, restaurants and laundromats up and down the boulevard, signs no bigger than a car window are all there is to identify businesses.

For owners, the tiny signs were all they could think of to keep from being written up. Signs less than six-feet square do not require a city permit.

Last week, the Woodhaven Business Improvement District, which represents 317 stores and professional offices on Jamaica Avenue, sponsored the first workshop for business owners since the city declared a moratorium on writing tickets for sign violations last February.

But many of the more than 50 Woodhaven business owners who packed the tables at the Avenue Diner, where the workshop was held, said they still could not get straight answers from representatives of the city’s Department of Buildings about how to comply with the law.

“I wanted to know: How much is a permit?” said Schmidt.

‘‘‘Well,’ they said. ‘I don’t want ‘Well.’ I need the city to tell me. You mean there is no set price?’
“I asked three times,” she said

When a reporter asked Pedro Woss, owner of K&P Realty Services, also on Jamaica Avenue, what information he got from the workshop, he held up two fingers in the familiar shape of a zero.

“They don’t know the answers to questions,” said Woss.

 

Woodhaven businesses being targeted for fines

From CBS 2:

Dozens of store owners in Queens say the city is cutting into their bottom line.

They’re being forced to take down their outdoor signs that they say are vital to their business.

A DOB spokesperson says they’ve received anonymous complaints about area businesses, and have to inspect once that happens. In a statement, the spokesperson said the department isn’t specifically targeting Woodhaven.

Local leaders aren’t satisfied.

“They weren’t aware they had to have a permit when the sign was put up,” Assemblyman Michael Miller (D-38th) said. “Now they’re being penalized for it.”

Miller is trying to find a compromise with the city. He’s hoping they can set up an amnesty period for business owners.

Store owners say the only thing falling will be their bottom line since as things currently stand, they have no way of advertising their business. Many say they bought their shop with the awning or sign already up, thinking everything was already up to code.

DSNY, please clean this up!

"Driving home today in Bayside on 43rd Ave. and 223rd Street a home made sign caught my eye. I had to stop get out and snap a picture that I hope you share on Queens Crap. People are feed up with the inordinate amount of littter and their do nothing local government.
Thanks..."

- anonymous

Business owners harassed over size of signs

From AMNY:

A number of store owners along Jamaica Avenue in Woodhaven have received violations for their signs in recent months.

Others, hoping to ward off future fines, are pulling down their storefront signs.

The result is a streetscape pockmarked with blank spaces above shop fronts and merchants who said they were struggling before being hit with an unexpected fee.

“I was told there was a complaint about my sign, and I find that hard to believe,” said Vasiliadis, who heard about the violation in August. “I’ve been here nine years. Where would the complaint come from?”

Buildings Department officials confirmed they examined the sign at Avenue Diner after receiving a call about it through the 311 line.

Similarly, city personnel inspected Caridad Restaurant across the street, after the agency received a 311 call about its awning in June. Officials said owner Bruno Taveras’ 14-foot sign was illegal and anchored to the facade without a permit.

“We are here almost 20 years, and I never heard anything about the sign,” said Tavares. “They also said I need insurance. But I already have insurance for the establishment. Nobody in court wants to hear that.”

Andrew Rudansky, a spokesman for the Buildings Department, said signs under six-square-feet do not need a permit.

I'm glad to see that DOB has taken care of the illegal conversion problems and now has time to go after this menace.

"Fallout shelter" signs to be removed

From Huffington Post:

New York City has quietly begun removing some of the corroding yellow nuclear fallout shelter signs that were appended to thousands of buildings in the 1960s, saying many are misleading Cold War relics that no longer denote functional shelters.

The small metal signs are a remnant of the anxieties over the nuclear arms race between the United States and the former Soviet Union, which prompted U.S. President John F. Kennedy to create the shelter program in 1961 in cities across the nation. The signs, with their simple design of three joined triangles inside a circle, became an emblem of the era.

The removal of some of the signs from public school buildings, which has not previously been reported, is intended to partly reduce this potential confusion, according to the city’s Department of Education.

Michael Aciman, a department spokesman, confirmed that any designated fallout shelters created in the city’s schools are no longer active and said that the department is aiming to finish unscrewing the signs from school walls by roughly Jan. 1.

Sign of a bad neighbor

"Can you tell me how or who can help with a builder who built his own illegal street parking? Calls to 311 and DOT have done nothing (shocking!). Sanford Ave between 160 and 161 Flushing - pictured is a STREET sign they put up!! Parking is bad enough without these idiots!" - anonymous

Unintentionally funny typo may reveal the future

A progressive hotel? Uh oh! We know what that means.

Landlord threatens to call ICE on tenants

From the Daily News:

A landlord who’s faced past allegations of tenant harassment has posted signs touting a Department of Homeland Security tip line in some of his Queens buildings, which have unnerved some tenants.

Between President Trump’s push to deport undocumented residents and a spike in immigration raids, the Bangladeshi tenants of a Zara Realty apartment building on 168th St. in Jamaica are on edge.

“It’s to scare the people,” said Abukhar Hossain, whose family has lived at the nine-story brick address for 15 years.

A recent visit showed the DHS placards posted prominently at 168th St. and at another Zara-managed building a block away on 88th Ave.

Tenants at 168th St. said the signs have been up since Zara arrived in 2014. Tenants at 88th Ave. didn’t know when they first went up.

Hossain said he couldn’t say whether the signs at 168th St. resulted in DHS activity, but noted that at least one undocumented family was among several tenants who’ve moved out since Zara Realty took over.

CBS visits Greenpoint parking trap

From CBS 2:

It is called the parking trap of Brooklyn, on Manhattan Avenue between Huron and India streets. Even a Department of Transportation driver and Greenpoint’s city councilman have fallen for it.

“I’ve definitely gotten one or two tickets there myself,” said Councilman Stephen Levin (D-33rd).

A sign is set up on the sidewalk, and it says two-hour metered parking is permitted from the sign to the end of the block. But on the other side of the sign, parking is not allowed – even though there is a space is all circled off by the same white line.

But the space on the other side of the sign is a no standing zone. There is another sign saying as much on the corner, where there used to be a bus stop.

The bust stop moved last year, but the parking rules stayed.

“The best solution is actually restoring all of the parking on that whole block because there’s no bus stop there now, and so they really should restore all the parking that they can, and not give people a major headache and $115 ticket,” added Councilman Levin.

Fed up drivers said they have tried reaching out to the city to no avail, so CBS2 decided to show the images to the Department of Transportation. A department representative told CBS2, “The DOT will look into adjusting the markings in this area to eliminate confusion indicating where drivers can park.”

In the meantime, there's a new app to help you pay your tickets!

Too expensive a typo to fix?

"This ridiculously misspelled sign at Steinway Street and 31st Avenue has embarrassingly been there for years!" - anonymous

De Blasio's top adviser exhibits serious lack of judgment

Lincoln Restler, fauxgressive extraordinaire, and senior adviser to Mayor de Blasio, didn't see any problem posting this photo on Facebook. It's beyond stupid, especially coming from a member of an extremely well to do white family.

Does it scare anyone else out there to have people like Lincoln Restler advising the mayor?

Perhaps the DOT needs a calendar

Sign of the times in Bayside

Too bad it doesn't list the phone number of the local council member.

DOT's strange response to sign request

Hi Crappy,

DOT refused a request to put a No Parking sign (during school hours) in front of the new charter school here in Woodhaven. Currently it is the home for a school that has a lot of kids with special needs.

The reason DOT gave for rejecting the request is that there was a hydrant there, and they said the school should just use that. (It's actually in front of my house, not the school).

We went around and found seven schools in the immediate area with No Parking signs (during school hours) directly next to hydrants.

Hope all is well with you,

Ed Wendell
Woodhaven

Jerk vandalizes historical sign

JeanMarie Evelly/DNA Info

From DNA Info:

An historical sign in Astoria Park that commemorates the General Slocum Disaster is being replaced after it was heavily vandalized, according to the Parks Department.

The sign, which was located on Shore Boulevard near the Hell Gate Bridge, describes how the General Slocum steamboat caught fire off the park's shoreline in 1904, killing more than a thousand people — what the Parks Department says was the highest death toll of a disaster in the city before 9/11.

The sign was taken down last month after someone vandalized it, tagging it with what appeared to be a marker or paint. It will be replaced with a new sign since workers were unable to remove the markings, according to Parks Department Spokeswoman Meghan Lalor.

There's no set date yet for when the new sign will be installed, she said. It will be similar to the old one in its wording but will have an updated design.

Parking signs appear out of nowhere

Dear Crappy,

These signs went up on 3 blocks around Richmond Hill High School in Richmond Hill Queens without notice yesterday afternoon. Previously, you just couldn’t park in front of the school doors on school days. Yesterday, new parking restrictions were posted saying parking was permitted only with Dept of Ed permits during school days from 7 – 4 taking away a lot of the community’s parking. I already had been parking 1 block away from home due to competition for parking from multiple family homes and apartment buildings. Yesterday, disabled son in tow, I parked 2 blocks away (and I was probably the first to spot the signs). Who knows how far away I will have to park the next time? My neighbors and I take the train to work so we need places to park a car for 24 hour stretches and this takes 40-50 of those spots away. How can they do this without notice to the community? It’s a hardship to the community!

I sent this to Ruben Wills aide since the school is within his bounds as is an apartment building nearby. My side of the street across from the apartment was carved off into Karen Koslowitz’s district Eric Ulrich’s also has some of the impacted nearby community.

Did these signs go up elsewhere in Queens, too?

Helen

Perhaps it's time for a new sign?

Queens Gymnasia...Ya think?

Queens Botanic Garden has signs against drinking toilet water

From DNA Info:

Signs put up in the restroom cubicles of the Queens Botanical Garden take the prize for stating the obvious: "Toilet water is not safe for drinking."

The messages hang over toilet bowls full of water that is often colored blue.

Because it's not potable and has not been treated by facilities operated by the city's Department of Environmental Protection, the garden said it was required to install the signs.

Fair warning

This sign was spotted on Eliot Avenue. The fact is that this has been going on for decades, yet people still let their dogs outside unattended. Worse, they tie them up outside stores while they go inside. Please don't.

Vallone wants more truck signs

From the Queens Gazette:

On March 3, the Transportation Committee heard Councilman Paul Vallone’s bill, Intro 315, aimed at curbing the illegal truck traffic that plagues many residential streets in his and many other districts. Trucks are a vital part of New York City’s economy and serve millions of residents and businesses through making deliveries and providing transport and services; however, many streets in the city are not designed to handle such traffic. Trucks are generally not allowed to use non-designated routes.

However, due to a Department Of Transportation (DOT) policy that discourages negative signage to be placed in the City of New York, commercial trucks have flagrantly used residential streets to speed up their routes knowing that the New York Police Department will often not issue violations because of the lack of this “negative signage.” Vallone’s legislation would require the Department of Transportation to conduct a study of compliance to the rules of the City of New York by truck drivers relative to truck routes every three years, and rank the 10 blocks within each community district where the largest number of trucks illegally disregard required truck route destinations. At such the department shall post a sign or ensure such a sign remains, stating “No Trucks Except Local Deliveries.” The Department would also be required to post the locations of these signs on their website.

“Unfortunately, in an attempt to beautify the neighborhood by avoiding negative signage, you end up instead with trucks and tractor trailers plowing down residential streets, polluting with fumes and noise and endangering residents."

Signs are not required for ticketing. Instead of Vallone giving in to lame NYPD excuses, he should be calling out the department for being lax with enforcement. If ticketing is not a priority now, it won't be after more signs are posted. And DOT is not interested in "beautifying" neighborhoods. More trucks plowing through residential streets is considered good for commerce and DOT's policies reflect that.

This fellow, while seemingly well-meaning, is focused on the wrong problem here.