China toll is now 425
Beijing opening hosps, further restricting travel to fight virus Bryant Pk. skate cost hit by Dem
has threatened walkout Tuesday.
Hong Kong was hit hard by SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, in 2002-03, an illness from the same family of viruses as the current outbreak and which many believe was intensified by official Chinese secrecy and obfuscation. a bigger
The private company that operates the Bryant Park ice skating rink is on thin ice with a local pol.
Bronx Councilman Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx) is demanding the city’s parks commissioner investigate what Torres called “extortionate” costs that amount to “price gouging on public land, creating a prohibitive barrier to entry for the lowest-income New Yorkers.”
He pointed to online claims from the Parks Department and Rink Management Services Corp., which is contracted to operate the skating at the park’s “Winter Village,” that describe the amenity as “free.”
Skate rentals start at $18 for kids and cost up to $48, according to the Bryant Park Corp.’s website.
“Promoting Winter Village as ‘the only free admission ice skating rink’ in NYC is deceptive advertising. Pure and simple,” Torres fumed in his Monday letter to Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver.
“Other privately managed ice rinks on private land charge flat fees as low as $5 for skate rentals and $15 for admissions,” the councilman added. “Why should a rink on public land be prohibitively more expensive than one on private land? It defies common sense about the proper use of public property.”
Torres, who’s running for Congress in the South Bronx, noted many New Yorkers can’t afford the high cost of skating at one of the city’s most picturesque public amenities.
He urged Silver to open an investigation into “the practice of deceptive advertising and predatory pricing on the part of Rink Management Services Corp.” and to adopt a general policy of “ensuring fair pricing of privately run programs on public land.”
Rink Management Services Corp. deferred comment to the nonprofit Bryant Park Corp., whose president, Dan Biederman, dismissed the letter as “ill-researched.”
“It’s ridiculous to talk about predatory pricing when the kids of New York, who almost always have their own skates, get an entire day of free skating with no time limitations,” he said.