KILLER TO-DO LIST
City eyed dogs, pools, tattoos — not disease
AS DEADLY germs festered in cooling towers in the South Bronx, the city issued fines for dogs that hopped fences without their tags and tattoo parlors that were missing a sink. After Legionnaires’ disease killed 10 people, state and city inspectors (r.) finally got to work on Saturday.
THE CITY has never inspected the cooling towers suspected of causing the deadly Legionnaires’ disease outbreak, but inspectors did manage to go after a Staten Island pooch who hopped the fence and got caught without a tag.
And inspectors made a point of slapping a Manhattan octogenerian with a $250 fine when she couldn’t prove her aging whiteand-tan mutt, Sunshine, had her rabies shot.
How the Health Department will handle adding cooling towers to its long to-do list remains to be seen.
Last week, Mayor de Blasio admitted the city didn’t know the locations of cooling towers, nor did it inspect them. He promised by week’s end to draft legislation to make building owners register the towers and have the city begin inspecting all of them.
By Saturday the legislation was still being drafted, and no one could say how many more inspectors will be needed to take on the new task. The law is expected to be introduced on Wednesday.
“New York City is the first city to propose standards for cooling tower inspections. Our inspectors’ job is to protect the public's health, and if charged with cooling tower inspections, they will ensure that property owners comply with the law and disinfect their cooling towers regularly. This is an important step we can take to further protect the health of New Yorkers, and it shows we are leading the way in preventing Legionnaires',” said Health Department spokesman Levi Fishman.
Already inspectors have their hands full. In fiscal year 2015, which ended last month, they opened more than 37,000 cases that wound up before the city Office of Administrative Trials & Hearings for a litany of violations.
Often the charges were tossed out, records show.
In only 16% of these cases were all the violations upheld, while nearly 40% of the individual charges were dismissed.In most of the cases, inspectors cite restaurants for violations like too-warm macaroni salad and evidence of unwanted rodent guests.
In 3,200 cases filed in fiscal 2015 — one in 10 — they issued citations for a wide variety of problems, from dogs and cats without paperwork to tattoo parlors the city believes didn’t have enough sinks.
Day care facilities are also on the list. Those inspections rose in fiscal 2015 to 696 from 593 in 2014, inspired by de Blasio’s push to expand pre-K.
There was also a surprising 57% increase in citations for swimming pool violations — 564, far more than any of the previous three years.
Inspectors even check out funeral parlors (14 cases last year) and tanning booths (11 cases). Barber shops and tattoo parlors , are also examined. Red Baron Ink in the E. Village was cited early this year for not having a permit or enough sinks.
The $1,000 fine for the lack of sink was dismissed after owners Giselle and Grant Lubbock pointed out that the inspector didn’t see a sink behind a curtain.
Another city agency then admitted it approved the permit but lost the paperwork, but because it wasn’t on hand that day, the Lubbocks still had to cough up $350.
“They really don’t know what they’re doing,” Giselle said. “That was just a complete waste of our time. I think it’s in many ways a scheme to get people to pay. I think some of their agents are out there trying to get fines for the city.”
Health Department officials said they have 371 inspectors.
Violations sometimes involved incidents some might deem rather petty.
In 2012, for instance, a Staten Island condo complex got slapped for not having enough chlorine in its swimming pool. The hearing examiner didn’t buy the defense that a power outage had blown out the fuses to his pool pump.
In 2013, a karaoke club was cited for not having soap in one of its bathrooms, though the owner insisted there was “a little bit of soap” in the container that the inspector didn’t count.
Cats and dogs are also under the city’s microscope, though the department dramatically reduced its “animal affairs” cases last year from 311 in fiscal 2014 to a mere four in fiscal 2015.
But in recent years, many a pet owner has received a visit from the department.
Dorothy Hickey experienced this in the summer of 2012 after her daughter’s pit bull, Drama, was found on a sidewalk without a metal dog tag.
Drama had jumped the fence surrounding her Staten Island home and a neighbor had called the city. Hick-
ey got a $250 fine and decided to fight back.
She soon found herself on a bureaucratic journey that continued even after poor Drama was washed away by Hurricane Sandy. In December 2012, a hearing officer dismissed the case.
“It was dismissed because nobody knew what happened to the dog. The judge said, ‘I hope she got away all right,’ ” Hickey said. “The judge was very nice. The inspector, she was very nasty. She was trying to get me in trouble and all.”
Often inspectors cited owners who couldn’t show proof that their beloved Sparkle or Fluffy had received rabies shots. This despite the fact that since 2011 there have been 99 cases of rabid animals in New York City — none were dogs, one was a cat.
Jewel Bachrach of Tribeca knows all about it. In May 2012, an inspector demanded proof that her then 15-year-old dog, Sunshine, had been vaccinated for rabies.
Hauled into a hearing, Bachrach, then 80, was grilled about the rabies shot. “When was it done? Oh I don’t know, whenever,” she replied.
She submitted a document dated July 18, 2012 — after the inspection — showing the dog was vaccinated, but that wasn’t good enough.
She appealed, calling the penalty exorbitant, and noting that “she is 80 years old and lives in a four-floor walkup apartment.”
The appeals examiner brushed her off, declaring, “While respondent may be dealing with a variety of challenges, the health code does not provide that any of those submitted by her are a defense for failure to get her dog vaccinated.”
In the end, she had to pay $250. Sunshine died a year later.
“She was 16,” Bachrach said. “I fed her. I cooked for her. She ate natural food. She didn’t eat chemicals. I believe that’s why she lived so long.”
Even cat owners aren’t safe. In 2010, Nadira Indelicato got hit with a citation for three stray cats she’d been feeding at her home in Ozone Park, Queens.
She says a neighbor called the city on her, and an inspector showed up demanding rabies vaccination paperwork for the kitties.
“It happens that I’m living between two neighbors, they don’t like cats,” she said. “The department of health is more concerned about I’m feeding the strays. They are part of God’s creatures. They deserved to be cared for. Imagine yourself being an animal and you are hungry.”
She says she regularly traps strays and gets them innoculated and neutered, but in this case forgot to submit the certification to the city. She wound up paying a $500 fine.
“I pleaded with them to lower the fine. The fee was $500,” she said, adding, “It could have been worse.”