KILLER TRASH BIZ CANNED
City yanks license of company that mowed down two people
The city has yanked the license of a private Bronx carting company responsible for two deaths over the last year, the Daily News has learned.
The Business Integrity Commission served Sanitation Salvage with a notice of emergency suspension on Friday for demonstrating a “pattern of unsafe business operations that creates an imminent danger to life and property.”
The suspension comes just a few hours after city inspectors caught a Sanitation Salvage helper driving a garbage truck in the Bronx without a license. The helper was operating the truck because the designated driver and another helper were out getting pizza, officials said.
Earlier this month, the city barred trash hauler Sean Spence — who was behind the wheel of the Sanitation Salvage truck during both fatal crashes — from driving garbage trucks in the city ever again.
“This company has demonstrated time and time again that they value profit over the lives of New Yorkers and the well-being of their workers,” Mayor de Blasio said in a statement Friday. “We are immediately suspending this company’s license following a pattern of unsafe practices.”
Sanitation Salvage, one of the city’s largest private sanitation companies, has been in business for more than 30 years and hauls trash for 6,000 commercial businesses.
The BIC has already made arrangements to have the city Department of Sanitation pick up refuse for commercial businesses contracted with Sanitation Salvage, officials said. The agency will also be working with Sanitation Salvage’s 87 employees to find them jobs with other carting companies.
Sanitation Salvage fired back at the suspension Friday, calling the city’s decision “unlawful and misguided.”
The decision was made before the city’s investigation not only threatens to put this family-owned company’s more than 80 employees out of work, it also will cause imminent harm to the thousands of small-business customers in the Bronx and throughout New York City who have long depended on Sanitation Salvage to provide safe and costefficient waste carting services.”
The company plans to appeal the decision and “reverse this gross abuse of government authority.”
A hearing is expected to be held next week.
“It’s good for our business,” said a shop owner down the block from Sanitation Salvage’s Bronx location. “The smell … When they wash the trucks, it smells like straight s--t.”
A body shop owner on the block sympathized with company’s workers.
“Well, what about the 87 other employees?” he said. “They still have families.”
The revocation is a major strike against the private carting industry, which has been repeatedly criticized for being maverick late-night menaces on the road.
City Council members have demanded that the city yank Sanitation Salvage’s license ever since it was revealed in May that Spence had killed two people on his route — and lied about one of his victims.
On Nov. 7, Spence fatally struck co-worker Mouctar Diallo on Jerome Ave. near E. Gun Hill Road in Norwood.
Diallo was working off the books for Sanitation Salvage as a trash hauler, but Spence told police that his helper was a panhandler who approached his truck “looking for a handout.”
Spence then claimed Diallo jumped onto the vehicle before falling off and being run over.
Diallo had been working with Spence for about nine months, the BIC learned. Spence’s lie was discovered in January, but he kept his commercial driver’s license.
Three months later, on April 27, Spence ran over Leon Clark on E. 152nd St. near Jackson Ave. in Morrisania, cops said.
He has not yet been charged criminally in either death.
When issuing his ruling to bar the hauler from driving a private garbage truck in the city ever again, BIC Chairman Dan Brownell said Spence “lacks the good character, honesty and integrity necessary to participate in the trade waste industry” in New York.
“While we still need more
authority to address safety concerns in this industry, we’re taking a stand against dangerous driving by getting this individual off the streets,” Brownell said.
During a thorough audit of Sanitation Salvage’s books, the BIC learned that company trucks have been involved in 58 collisions since March 2016.
Besides the two fatalities, 11 people were injured in the crashes. In six instances, property was damaged.
On Aug. 8, a Sanitation Salvage helper who did not possess a driver’s license was caught driving an 80,000pound truck down the wrong side of the street in the Bronx, officials said.
Investigators also found “systematic safety issues,” including excessive working hours and unsafe trucks.
In 2013, the city fined Sanitation Salvage $85,000 for poor record keeping and accounting issues following an audit, officials said.
Sean Campbell, president of Teamsters Local 813, which represents private carting workers in the city, said his organization had asked the BIC to shut down Sanitation Salvage in May.
"Companies like Sanitation Salvage should not be doing business in this city, and BIC made the right decision to revoke their license. For years, companies thought no one would hold them accountable and they would get away with dangerous practices,” he said.
City Hall is working on overhauling the commercial waste industry and hopes to launch a new system where the city is divided into zones and one company is tapped to pick up trash from businesses in each area.
Private trash carters killed 43 New Yorkers between 2010 and November 2017, city data show
City Councilman Antonio Reynoso (D-Bronx), whose district includes several trash routes used by Sanitation Salvage, echoed Campbell’s words Friday.
"While no action we take can fill the void left by the tragic death of these two men, we are ensuring that the company responsible can no longer operate on our city’s streets,” said Reynoso. “Sanitation Salvage proved itself to be a company that not only engaged in reckless behavior, but was willing to lie to investigators about the circumstances of Mr. Diallo’s death.”
“This action sends a strong signal to the private carting industry that this administration has zero tolerance for companies who flout the law,” he said.