After a year and a half since the bill was introduced, the Council finally votes to create a permanent outdoor dining program. On August 3, 2023, the City Council voted to approve Int 31-C, which establishes a permanent outdoor dining program. The program will allow sidewalk cafes to operate annually and roadway cafes to operate seasonally, with removable furniture and decor replacing solid dining shed structures. The program follows the temporary outdoor dining program that … <Read More>
Search Results for: Worker Safety
Unlicensed plumber fined
Worker on a Queens jobsite cited for working on plumbing installation without a license. The Department of Buildings performed a safety inspection of a worksite at 210-19 Richland Avenue in Hollis Hills, Queens, on December 1, 2020, and found respondent Khalim Sharipov, along with two other workers, engaged in plumbing work. The workers were on a scaffold with tools including a gas torch, tape measure, and copper fittings and copper piping. Buildings saw Sharipov and … <Read More>
City and Independent Contractor Liable
The court found the defendants were owners of a construction site where a fatal accident occurred, and could not use a provision of the workers compensation law to bar the decedent estates claims. Halmar International owned a construction site located in Maybrook, New York. The site was being used for the construction of a concrete mockup of an aqueduct in preparation for construction work on an aqueduct in Gardiner, New York. On December 2, 2013, … <Read More>
Mayor Appoints Jimmy Oddo as DOB Commissioner; Molly Wasow Park as DSS Commissioner
On April 27, 2023, Mayor Eric Adams announced his appointments for Commissioners for the Department of Buildings and Department of Social Services. Jimmy Oddo will be the new commissioner of the Department of Buildings, and Molly Wasow Park will be the new commissioner for the Department of Social Services, after serving as Acting Commissioner since March 2023.
Jimmy Oddo – Department of Buildings Commissioner
Jimmy Oddo received a bachelor’s degree in history from Fordham University … <Read More>
City Continues to Address Issues with Illegal Smoke Shops
On January 18th, 2023, the New York City Council’s Committee on Health held an oversight hearing to discuss the surge of unlicensed smoke shops citywide and related safety issues. The oversight hearing was held jointly with the Committee for Consumer and Worker Protection and the Committee for Oversight and Investigations.
Toppling Christopher Columbus; Public Statues and Monuments
Christopher Columbus is in trouble. Political pressure to remove Columbus monuments most recently dates from 1992 during the preparations for the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s first voyage. The movement to remove the monuments accelerated in the summer of 2020 following the murder of George Floyd.