Tag: new york

NY Gov. Kathy Hochul ‘test-marketing’ a ban on all tobacco sales

The pro-legal weed Hochul administration is quietly trying to fire up support for a complete ban on the sale of tobacco products in New York, The Post has learned.

The state Health Department commissioned a new survey aimed at gauging support for an all-out prohibition — despite Gov. Hochul’s failure to secure support from state legislators to include a ban on menthol cigarettes and other flavored tobacco products in the yet-to-be-approved state budget.

“What is your opinion about a policy that would end the sale of all tobacco products in New York within 10 years?” were among the questions asked last week in the “New York Local Opinion Leaders Survey,” examined by the Post.

Another asks: “What is your opinion about a policy that would ban the sale of all tobacco products to those born after a certain date? For example, those born after the year 2010 or later would never be sold tobacco.”

The poll also solicited input on whether there’s backing for other tobacco-related measures, including capping the number of retailers who can sell “products in a community” and prohibiting its sales near schools.

The survey, conducted by nonprofit research organization RTI International, was distributed to “community leaders” statewide, including “county legislators and county directors of public health,” according to an April 13 memo to prospective participants from Jennifer Lee, director of the Health Department’s Bureau of Tobacco Control. 

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New York City Should Have Always Smelled Like Pot

“​​The degree to which Manhattan air is now just saturated with the aroma of marijuana is frankly absurd,” tweeted writer Thomas Chatterton Williams back in January. “New York Smells Like a Declining City,” declared The Wall Street Journal last month. “It’s like everybody’s smoking a joint now,” New York City’s own mayor, Eric Adams, commented last year.

Though New York state legalized recreational weed in 2021, it’s taken two years for the cannabis industry to actually get it off the ground. Just a few dispensaries have opened up in the city so far, but much has been made about its alleged transformation into either a Reefer Madness hellscape or a stoner Xanadu, depending on who you ask.

“Let’s be blunt—legal weed is turning New York workers into zombies,” wrote Steve Cuozzo for the New York Post just days ago, complaining of worse customer service than he encountered yesteryear. “the weed / garbage / piss cocktail of smells in parts of manhattan is truly nauseating,” one Twitter user chimed in. “The biggest change is the smell of marijuana. It’s EVERYWHERE. Inescapable. It’s made the city a lot grimier, and much more unsafe,” added another.

Now that they no longer have to fear arrest, more people may indeed be lighting up in public. As with many things in New York, private behavior—a couple’s fight, a parent disciplining their child, a group of friends who are too boisterously drunk—spills into public spaces. We’re tasked with learning how to tolerate, or at least look past, the low-grade deviancy and etiquette missteps we encounter in streets and subway stations, shared hallways and stoops. “For the record, I don’t care if people smoke (or drink!), but the imposition of the odor all over public spaces is weird and feels deeply unserious,” Chatterton Williams (one of the more reasonable pot critics) added.

Still, many of the tweets and articles in this genre clumsily attempt to underscore the same idea: New York is getting worse by the day—and pot must be to blame.

But the aroma of weed in the air ought to be interpreted as people relishing their newfound freedom, a sign that tolerance toward people’s mind-alteration preferences has rightfully prevailed.

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NEW YORK’S IMPRISONED WOMEN BRAVE RISKS TO SUE SEXUAL ABUSERS UNDER NEW LAW

Kim Brown says she met a lieutenant at New York’s Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in 1996 or 1997 when she was sent to his office for disciplinary reasons. But the officer seemed unusually interested in her.

“He started calling me down, and I didn’t understand why,” she told The Appeal. I didn’t do anything.” Their initial meetings were “under the guise of interviewing me about things that were going on in the facility,” she said. “And then it became light. He would offer me a drink.”

Brown eventually relented to the pressure from a man with near-total control over her life inside the prison—a situation she now sees as sexual abuse. Today, Brown feels she finally has one way to fight back: She is among nearly 1,000 women filing claims so far this year as part of New York’s Adult Survivors Act (ASA), which briefly waives New York’s statute of limitations requirements to file sexual abuse lawsuits.

But while the new law is intended to address past harm, Brown is one of only a small number of women likely to be doing so from prison. For incarcerated people like Brown, filing a claim—or even talking about what happened to them—carries unique risks. Among numerous claims, currently or formerly incarcerated people have alleged that guards have coerced women into performing oral sex in plain view of others, refused to allow imprisoned people to file complaints under the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act, forced women to perform sex acts by threatening discipline; locked people in prison facilities and assaulted them; and a host of other serious incidents.

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NYC will target food choices in its battle against climate change

The Adams administration has announced a plan to begin tracking the carbon footprint created by household food consumption as well as a new target for New York City agencies to reduce their food-based emissions by 33% by the year 2023.

Mayor Eric Adams announced the plan on Monday along with the Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice as part of the city’s ongoing pledge to reduce the impact of climate change. At the same event, the Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice published a new chart in the city’s annual greenhouse gas inventory that publicly tracks the carbon footprint created by household food consumption — primarily generated by meat and dairy products.

The new analysis is a spin on the emissions data that comes standard with the annual inventory. It was made through a partnership with American Express, C40 Cities and EcoData lab.

Adams, an ardent evangelist of plant-based diets, announced the new tracker and policy at a Brooklyn culinary center run by Health + Hospitals, the city’s public health care system.

“It is easy to talk about emissions that are coming from vehicles and how it impacts our carbon footprint,“ Adams said. “But we now have to talk about beef.”

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How ‘equity’ ruined cannabis legalization in New York

New York’s legal weed experiment is going about as poorly as possible.

Earlier this week, the state finally signed off on a handful of new dispensary licenses, a full two years after legalization.

Illegal pot shops, meanwhile, have gotten so common — and so attractive to criminals — that Gov. Hochul has asked Albany to approve five-figure fines and tough enforcement powers to help shut them down.

It remains to be seen whether any state can legalize marijuana without serious downsides.

But New York’s attempt has been particularly disastrous.

This is in large part because rather than prioritizing tax revenue or public health in the legalization process, Albany put progressive-tinged “social justice” strategies front and center in its policy design.

They admit as much.

Hochul has emphasized that New York State’s marijuana industry will benefit those who committed crimes under prohibition.

The state’s Office of Cannabis Management has said that “social and economic equity” is a “major focus” of legalization.

And the New York City Mayor’s Office promised to put equity “at the center” of the budding industry. You get the idea.

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Misleadership in the Bronx: AOC, the Fraud Squad, Military Recruiters and U.S. Imperialism

On Monday March 20th 2023, U.S. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Adriano Espaillat co-hosted a “Student Services Fair” at Renaissance High School for Musical Theater and the Arts in the Bronx. As the official flier indicates, there was a large military presence . Alarmed that the two U.S. politicians, especially one who is a self-described “democratic socialist” and affiliate of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), were hosting this career fair, the Bronx Anti-War Coalition organized a counter-recruitment protest.

‘The Greatest Purveyor of Violence in the World Today’

The official flier for the event listed seven representatives that would headline the fair. Six of them represented branches of the military. Protestors observed dozens of uniformed military personnel walk into the fair through the main entrance, while AOC snuck in and out through back doors. She refused to address her constituents’ questions and instead sent a U.S. Marine colonel outside to address us. The military officer bragged about his time training Saudi troops and the countries he and his government have invaded.

The “duck test” is a form of abductive reasoning, usually expressed as “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it’s probably a duck.” The test implies that a person can identify an unknown subject by observing that subject’s habitual characteristics. It is used to counter abstruse arguments that something is not what it appears to be. This same reasoning can be applied here to deduce that this “student services fair” was in fact a military recruitment fair. Yet somehow, AOC continues to deny that the military played a major role at this event.

Dr. Martin Luther King was crystal clear on this question in 1967 , exactly a year before the U.S government assassinated him: “I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government.” AOC herself has been on record speaking out against predatory military recruitment tactics targeting our youth. Why then did she decide to host a fair giving these predators access to disenfranchised high school students? The Bronx Anti-War Coalition understands that anytime and anywhere we see military enlistment officers or representatives of the U.S. service academies near our youth, we must confront them and chase them out of our communities.

After her security detail briskly whisked her through a backdoor clear of our protest, she decided to respond to us via instagram . Like other U.S. politicians who practice duplicity, she has a true gift for evasion. She smeared and lied about us in a nine minutes and thirty second video while doubling down on why she has a “responsibility” to inform Bronx youth about U.S. military enlistment “opportunities.” Did it not occur to AOC and her inner-circle to denounce the genocidaires in her monologue? Too busy victimizing herself, at no point did the Congresswoman address the reasons we were outside protesting: 1) to defend the multinational, working-class youth being used as cannon fodder to fight imperialist wars, 2) to stand for the Black, Indigenous and Latinx soldiers murdered on U.S. military bases, such as Abdul Latifu, Vanessa Guillén, Elder Fernandes, and Ana Fernanda Basaldua Ruiz, among hundreds of others, and 3) to give voice to the millions of victims in the Global South targeted and murdered by U.S. sanctions, drone attacks and unprovoked invasions.

This article explores why the anti-war movement has a responsibility to continue to confront AOC, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, Bernie Sanders and any faux leftist professional politician and sheepdog who go along with the bipartisan pro-imperialist and pro-war status quo.

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Led By “Fat Activists”, New York Considering Bill To Ban Weight Discrimination

As if being overweight wasn’t already enough of a virtue in the United States nowadays, New York will soon be looking to approve a bill that would ban “weight discrimination in hiring and housing”.

Victoria Abraham, referred to multiple times as a “fat activist” by the New York Times, who reported the story, says her cause isn’t to lose weight – but rather to make sure people don’t get the wrong perception about fat people.

A proponent for the legislation, she told the Times: “There is a perception that you’re lazy or unable to do the work. People don’t even realize that they have that bias.”

She said she proudly displays her body on her LinkedIn profile, so “prospective employers know whom they are considering hiring.”

The bill will add weight to the list of protected groups, which also includes race, gender, religion and disability, the report notes, stating that obesity rates are up over the last 2 decades and accelerated during lockdowns, when people were forced to stay home. More than 40% of Americans are obese, the Times writes.

We have to ask, though: if that number breaches 50%, can’t obese people no longer be considered a minority? We digress.

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NYPD officers brag about milking overtime, call detainees names in accidental recording

Jonathan Wohl’s arrest last September was about as routine as they come.

The 35-year-old construction worker was staging a one-man protest against his union, recording himself on his phone as he stood in the lobby of the Midtown offices of Laborers Local 79. When security asked him to leave, he refused and the building called the cops.

In a strange twist of technological fate, Wohl’s phone, which was at that point in the possession of the police, kept on recording.

For nearly eight hours, as Wohl paced around a holding cell in the Midtown South precinct, his phone picked up conversations among dozens of cops who did not appear to know they were being recorded.

The tape, which was reviewed by Gothamist, offers a rare window into the daily work of a police officer behind closed doors – and the ways that a number of recent criminal justice reforms have changed the way officers process arrests and collect overtime.

In contrast to comments from top NYPD officials, who have spent years lobbying against bail reform, rank-and-file officers offered another perspective, suggesting the additional paperwork required by the new law had been a boon to their paychecks.

“Bail reform sucks. But it’s also one of the best things that’s ever happened, too,” Wohl’s arresting officer, Shaun Enright, said to a coworker in the recording. “God is great, bro.”

The NYPD declined to make Enright available for comment on this story and declined to comment as an agency. The Police Benevolent Association, the union representing rank-and-file police officers, did not respond to a request for comment.

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Here’s All the Crimes Alvin Bragg Shrugged Off to Go After Trump

While police are catching criminals on New York City’s unsavory streets, Soros-tied Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has caught a chronic case of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS). The politically ambitious Bragg, whose self-styled crowning achievement is indicting a former U.S. president for the first time ever in American history, is using what he alleges to be a federal campaign-finance violation as a means to upgrade an otherwise-misdemeanor charge to a felony via an untested legal theory.

Simultaneously, as Bragg seeks to prosecute President Donald Trump, the GOP’s top 2024 contender, to the fullest extent of the law no matter the cost, the soft-on-crime DA has downgraded felonies to misdemeanors in a majority of his cases, handing get-out-of-jail-free cards to hordes of hardened criminals with little regard for the victims of these violent crimes in his own jurisdiction.

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New York Lawmakers Want To Use a ‘Netflix Tax’ To Pay for the Subway

After New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) approved a budget authorizing a 5.5 percent fare increase to address chronic budget shortfalls, the state assembly flew into action coming up with ways to avoid that. New York’s latest tax scheme would attempt to pay for the MTA by hiking taxes on everyone from streaming services like Netflix to small delivery businesses to digital workers —basically, on everyone except the actual riders of public transportation.

Under its 2023 budget, the MTA is set to run a $600 million deficit, even after using nearly $1.8 billion in federal pandemic-related aid. Things will get even worse once that federal aid runs out—in 2025, the MTA is set to run a $3 billion deficit. 

In place of fare increases, Gov. Kathy Hochul has now proposed an increase on the top payroll tax rate paid by employers: from 0.34 percent to 0.5 percent in New York City and surrounding counties served by MTA trains and buses. State legislators have countered with a hodgepodge of proposals, including a 2 percent increase on the top statewide corporate tax rate, applying state and local sales taxes to streaming services, and a new $0.25 “delivery fee” on delivery transactions within New York (with some exceptions).

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