The Metropolis Council permitted Wednesday controversial new lodge rules critics had referred to as a “nuclear bomb” on the trade — and now hospitality companies must cough up $350 for licenses.
The plan noticed a landslide victory at Metropolis Corridor, with pols voting 45-4 in assist of the laws that had been considerably amended because it was first proposed, successful buy-in from many lodge house owners.
The invoice, often called the Protected Motels Act, would require Massive Apple motels to acquire licenses for 2 years and cling to strict licensing necessities or rack up fines as excessive as $5,000 for infractions.
The legislation requires lodging companies to workers entrance desks in any respect hours and supply panic buttons to workers in addition to coaching for workers to establish human trafficking.
Enterprise house owners had pushed in opposition to the plan as a result of it might ban institutions from contracting out most providers — that means they’d must straight make use of many employees. Revisions to the invoice added exemptions for sure jobs and allowed many current subcontracts to be “grandfathered” in.
Council member Julie Menin (D-Manhattan) mentioned she sponsored the legislation after seeing NYPD reviews of 39 murders since 2009 and the greater than 14,000 prison complaints between 2019-23.
“Our invoice is extremely necessary for public security,” she mentioned, including that giving workers coaching to establish human trafficking would even be a precedence.
“Take a look at the P Diddy case, the place is that unhealthy exercise taking place? It’s taking place largely in motels.”
Menin mentioned the legislation additionally addresses “deplorable working situations and wage theft” by banning subcontracting for motels with 100 rooms or extra.
“It provides the town jurisdiction to close down unhealthy actors,” Menin mentioned, pointing to an instance of a infamous Queens lodge referred to as the Umbrella that closed after a New 12 months’s murder in 2021.
“There lastly was a homicide after the neighbors had been complaining for years, the town couldn’t shut it down straight away as a result of they didn’t have the authorized jurisdiction, this might imply they might,” she mentioned.
The invoice’s secure passage by way of the council was clinched when a deal was brokered between highly effective trade teams the Resort Trades Council and the Resort Affiliation of New York Metropolis after that they had initially opposed it.
Final week, a key provision was added permitting an exemption for small, principally non-union motels with 100 and fewer rooms to stick to a ban on contracting out for “core workers.”
However some critics stay.
American Resort & Lodging Affiliation interim President & CEO Kevin Carey mentioned that bigger motels are being “arbitrarily focused.
“From the beginning, this rushed and haphazard legislative course of has been in service of 1 aim; to ship a single particular curiosity victory on the expense of small and minority-owned companies,” he mentioned.
“This invoice will do materials harm to the companies and the tax income that motels generate for the town’s financial system and lead to greater prices for vacationers.”
Mayor Eric Adams, a Democra, is anticipated to assist the invoice.
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