Ross Sandler, Center for New York City Law Director
The City aggressively attacks unsafe conditions for bike riders on the City’s streets and avenues, but less successfully attacks unsafe behaviors of bike riders. Unsafe conditions can mostly be engineered away, but unsafe behaviors require changes of a cultural nature. The City in 2019 experienced 28 bike rider deaths and more than 4,000 bike injuries. So far 2020 has experienced more bike injuries than in 2019. To make the City safer for bike riders, the City should aggressively enforce the traffic laws against vehicles, but also aggressively enforce the rules against bike riders who ride against traffic, ignore traffic signals, speed, or text and talk on phones while riding. (read more…)
Credit: CityLaw
Bike riding is enjoyable, healthy and fun. It can also be dangerous. The City is heavily invested in encouraging bike riding and bike safety. Yet, accidents happen, and when they do bike riders may opt to sue. Bike riders receive no special status as tort plaintiffs. Bike riders in court live by the same rules that govern tort claims by pedestrians and car drivers. As New York courts have repeatedly stated, a “bicyclist is required to use reasonable care for his or her own safety, to keep a reasonably vigilant lookout for vehicles, and to avoid placing himself or herself in a dangerous position.” (read more…)
Bronx County Courthouse. Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Jim Henderson
Tenant paid rent but received no receipts from landlord. Francisco Pacheco lived in a rent-stabilized apartment in the Bronx, managed by Mayflower Properties, LLC. Mayflower Properties sued Pacheco for back rent of $11,575, later increasing the claim to $16,011. (read more…)
529 West 29th Street. Image Credit: CityLaw
Landlord sought to evict disabled man who had set two fires in his apartment. Jose Reyes, who received social security disability benefits related to his mental illness, lived in a Section 8 housing building owned by 529 West 29th LLC. Reyes set two fires in the building within a period of three months. Reyes set the first fire in his bathtub where he had placed documents and personal papers because he was experiencing extreme anxiety about a possible identity theft. The second fire happened when Reyes was not at home; Reyes left flammable materials next to or on a lit gas stove. (read more…)
Art vendor in Manhattan. Image Credit: CityLaw
Parks’ rules limited where vendors of expressive material could sell their wares in City parks. The Parks Department adopted “Expressive Matter Vending Rules” which restricted the sale of “materials or objects with expressive content, such as newspapers, books, or writings, or visual art such as paintings, prints, photography, or sculpture.” The new rules limited the sale of expressive materials to 100 specifically designated spots in Union Square Park, Battery Park, High Line Park, and Central Park. The spots would be available on a first-come, first-serve basis with only one vendor per spot. (read more…)
Image Credit: CityLand
A flower shop in the Flower District obstructed a sidewalk with its plants. Holiday Flower & Plant shop, located on 118 West 28th Street, Manhattan, placed some of its plants outside the storefront with the intent of moving the plants inside after the store closed. The plants obstructed more than eight feet of sidewalk and reached the curb. An NYPD officer issued a summon to the flower shop for violating § 19-136 of the Administrative Code, which prohibits “any person to hang or place any goods, wares or merchandise . . . at a greater distance than three feet in front of his or her . . . store or other building. . . .” (read more…)
