It Looks Like A Bazaar In Istanbul : Without Police On The Street, Illegal Vendors And Gamblers Are Taking Over The Bronx zerohedge.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from zerohedge.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Mary Altaffer
New York City put a new law into effect this year that “relieved” the police of the responsibility of managing illegal street vending operations and sidewalk gambling activities. This was part of the movement to defund or abolish the police. Instead of having cops maintain the situation, that responsibility was handed over to a group of civilian “intervention” specialists. The theory behind this law was that confrontations with the police over so-called “quality of life” crimes could lead to more instances where the police would need to use force to clear the streets and gain compliance.
The problem is that the new agency tasked with these responsibilities was given no authority to confiscate goods or take anyone into custody. They aren’t even allowed to demand to see the identification of the people they “intervene” with. Would anyone care to take a guess as to what happened next? In one business district in the Bronx, illegal vendors and three-card
Midtown Has Been Empty, but Other Retail Zones Have Bounced Back
Shopping locally has helped foot traffic in some commercial districts across the city return almost to prepandemic levels.
Main Street, the heart of Flushing’s Chinatown, is busy but many businesses have closed.Credit.Tom Sibley for The New York Times
April 13, 2021
All eyes are on Midtown Manhattan as everyone anxiously waits to see if and when office workers and tourists will return to what have been eerily empty streets and whether the businesses that line them will regain customers lost during the pandemic.
But other retail corridors across New York are also important barometers of the city’s economy, as well as key to its recovery; a survey of five of them, one in each borough, showed signs of resilience.