Maspeth bar shut down for prostitution, drugs, gambling & counterfeit cigarettes

From NBC:

A Queens bar had its liquor license suspended after authorities allegedly uncovered prostitution, narcotics, illicit gambling and untaxed cigarettes.

The New York State Liquor Authority issued the emergency suspension of Huang Jia Inc in Maspeth Wednesday effective immediately, which prohibits alcohol to be sold or consumed on the premises.

According to the State Liquor Authority, SLA investigators and officers with the New York City Police Department’s Citywide Vice-Enforcement Division executed a search warrant of the bar on April 12. During the search warrant, investigators allegedly discovered 97 packs of counterfeit or untaxed cigarettes, jars and bags filled with the narcotic ketamine, records related to the sale of prostitution and illegal gambling devices.

The NYPD made nine arrests, including the bar’s owner, for criminal possession of a controlled substance. Additionally, a number of hazardous conditions were observed, including overcrowding, blocked exits and non-working emergency lighting, the State Liquor Authority says.

On April 14, the NYPD and SLA conducted a follow up inspection, making six arrests after allegedly discovering patrons with ketamine in three separate karaoke rooms inside the bar and finding patrons consuming alcohol after closing hours.

On April 16, the SLA charged the establishment with 22 violations of the ABC Law, including disorderly premises for permitting prostitution, gambling, trafficking of controlled substances, failure to supervise and for becoming a focal point for police attention.

Between March 15th and April 12th, the NYPD conducted three undercover operations where detectives posing as customers allegedly purchased narcotics, prostitution and gambling — all which formed the basis for the April 12 raid, officials say.

According to the NYPD, there was an alleged a pattern of criminal activity in and around the premises months prior to these incidents.

Boat club really knows how to party (and pollute)

From New York Sh*tty:

Last night the Mister and I decided to have dinner in Long Island City. Since the weather was (somewhat) amenable we decided to walk home. As we were crossing the Pulaski we spied signs of activity at the North Brooklyn Boat Club. Intrigued— because, as we all, a great deal of “educational outreach” is conducted at 10:13 on a Tuesday night— we decided to hang around see what gives. Clearly they were wrapping up for the night. And then the Mister saw something interesting. VERY INTERESTING.

This fellow placed an object to his mouth (a kazoo? cigarette?), pulled a drag and proceeded to walk to the floating dock. There he tossed it into the creek. The Mister was flummoxed:

Did you see that? He just tossed a cigarette into the creek?!?

Me: Yes, I saw that. Did you know the North Brooklyn Boat Club was recently awarded Greenpoint Community Environmental Fund money so as to educate bar patrons about how cigarette butts thrown onto the street enter our sewer system and eventually end up in the creek?
____________________________________

Yeah, but considering there could be oil floating on the surface of the water, it brings a whole new level of stupidity to the incident.

KABOOM! Happy 4th!

Loving those lobbyists

From the Daily News:

Special interests spent $210.5 million lobbying New York State and local governments in 2013, the state ethics commission revealed in its annual report Thursday.

Cigarette giant Altria Client Services and its affiliates spent the most on lobbying in 2013 — $3 million — to fight a tobacco display ban in New York City. The city and state teachers unions were next, spending $2.6 million and $2.2 million, respectively.

Among the firms with the biggest growth in business was Pitta Bishop Del Giorno & Giblin, which helped Melissa Mark-Viverito in her race for City Council speaker and then began lobbying her on behalf of clients.

The firm’s business jumped 30.4% in 2013 over 2012.

Styrofoam & e-cigs banned by Council

From the NY Times:

In its last scheduled legislative session of the year, the New York City Council passed major health and environmental regulations on Thursday, establishing a ban on plastic-foam food service containers, extending the city’s ban on public smoking to cover e-cigarettes and requiring composting at large restaurants.

The plastic-foam measure was a final victory of sorts for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, though it came with a caveat. In his State of the City address this year, Mr. Bloomberg said the plastic-foam containers were virtually impossible to recycle, and environmentalists have long complained that the foam cups, trays and containers, stained by beverages, grease and food, were needlessly clogging landfills.

In response to concerns that small businesses would be hurt by switching to costlier alternatives like paper and plastic, the bill allows small establishments and nonprofit organizations to apply for a waiver from the ban.

E-cigarettes, which use a battery to vaporize a nicotine solution, have grown in popularity based on a perception that they are a safer alternative to regular cigarettes, but the health implications remain in question. The bill limiting their use, pushed by two departing council members, James F. Gennaro of Queens and Speaker Christine C. Quinn of Manhattan, bans e-cigarettes wherever smoking is now prohibited, including restaurants, bars, parks and office buildings. The Bloomberg administration supported the measure.

Proponents cited the potential, if not yet fully known, health effects of e-cigarettes and their secondhand vapor, and said e-cigarettes confused bartenders and others who had to enforce the existing ban.

Council raises smoking age to 21

From the Daily News:

Opening a new front in the city’s war on smoking, the New York City Council voted Wednesday to hike the legal age for buying cigarettes to 21.

Mayor Bloomberg promised to sign the bill, making it certain that New York will become the first major city in America to adopt such a high age requirement.

Bloomberg said the new age requirement will prevent more teenagers from developing a smoking habit, saving lives. Research shows that more than 80% of smokers in New York began lighting up before the age 21.

Most smokers I know began lighting up before the age of 16. Don't think this will do anything except make the mayor feel good.

Illegal hotel and illegal cigarettes

From Queens Courier:

The investigation of an illegal cigarette trafficking operation led to the arrest of a Flushing family that was allegedly running an illegal hotel out of the home next door.

During the investigation of allegations of illegal cigarettes being sold out of a Saull Street residence, detectives noticed unusual activity going on at the two-family house next door, according to District Attorney Richard Brown. Multiple people were observed leaving the home with suitcases, and after further investigation, officials discovered that the residence was being advertised as a hotel on Chinese language websites.

Following a year-long investigation, a search warrant was executed on the home Thursday and Qiumin He, 55, his wife, Chun Y Tu, 56, and their son, Xiaoshan He, 34, who all live at the home, were arrested. They are currently awaiting arraignment and have been charged with second-degree reckless endangerment, according to Brown. Xiaoshan has also been charged with second-degree obstructing governmental administration for allegedly interfering with the arrests. They face up to one year in jail if convicted.

During yesterday’s search of the alleged illegal hotel, Department of Buildings inspectors were present as well as inspectors assigned to the New York City Fire Department, who found “numerous egregious violations, including insufficient egress and lack of required sprinkler systems and fire alarms and no exit signs,” said Brown. DOB inspectors had tried to enter the home several times over the last year, but weren’t allowed inside.

Illegal cigarette tax cheats

From the NY Post:

A Queens mother and her son were arrested with 677 cartons of illegal Asian cigarettes and $132,000 in cash, authorities announced today.

Ying-Jian Lin, 48, and Xiao Lin, 23, face up to four years in prison for peddling the shady smokes, which are untaxed and don’t carry the required surgeon general warnings, according to a Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.

Investigators watched the son pick up the contraband cartons from a Flushing garage and carry them to a small grocery store where his mother was spotted selling the cigarettes, Brown said.

Authorities said they found the cash --- mostly in $50 and $100 bills --- in a safe-deposit box.

Brown said the pair would have cheated the city out of about $45,000 in taxes on the seized smokes alone.

Perhaps we have the wrong priorities?

So the City Council and State Legislature refuse to ban shisha, since it's "cultural" and benefits a certain demographic. It has now been shown to be worse than cigarette smoking in at least one area. But NYS is working on the total prohibition of e-cigarettes, which are actually not nearly as harmful as cigarettes or hookah and help some people quit smoking.

Queens men charged with cigarette trafficking

From Bayside Patch:

A Bayside man was among five Queens residents arrested Friday in an illegal untaxed cigarettes trafficking bust, the Nassau County district attorney said.

Fei Yin, 24, of Bayside, was charged Friday with evasion of cigarette and tobacco product tax, Nassau County DA Kathleen Rice said. If convicted, he could face up to four years in prison.

Three men from Flushing - Maerong Gao, 57, Wai Ming Lui, 46, and Sauha Candy Lam, 35 - and another from Elmhurst - Duan Jun Zhang - were also arrested, the DA said.

The bust took place following a year-long illegal trafficking investigation and resulted in the seizure of more than 100 cases of cigarettes and $958,000.

Has problem bodega reformed?

From the Queens Courier:

A city investigation pinned a previously problematic deli grocery store in Briarwood with only one violation after multiple residents complained the store was selling “loosie” cigarettes and packs of smokes to minors.

Community Board 8 filed a complaint against the 84th Deli Grocery to the city’s Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) this April, according to District Manager Marie Adam-Ovide. The store, located at 84th Drive and Manton Street, was formerly Stop & Go before new owners took over in late 2008.

According to a spokesperson for the DCA, the city agency issued one violation for selling loosie cigarettes to an adult during inspections this May, but the store was not found to be selling tobacco to minors.

However, numerous violations for selling alcohol to minors — accumulated since 2006 under previous owners — did cause the New York State Liquor Authority to revoke the deli’s liquor license in November 2009, records showed.

The store — which no longer sells alcohol — has stayed out of trouble for the most part since then, said manager Mohammed Ahmed.

Ahmed, who worked for a couple of months under the former owners, said he makes sure his employees always ask for proper identification to avoid repeating problems of the past.

Ban on using benefits for bad things

From the NY Post:

Legislation is being introduced in the state Senate that would bar welfare recipients from using their public-assistance money to buy booze or cigarettes or spend money on lottery tickets or in casinos, The Post has learned.

The proposed law also would impose a ban on welfare spending on adult-oriented entertainment, such as strip clubs.

“Public assistance is designed to help needy families provide for their children until they can transition back to the workforce and become self-sufficient,” said state Sen. Thomas Libous (R-Binghamton), the deputy majority leader and bill sponsor.

“This common-sense legislation would protect hardworking taxpayers from abuse while ensuring that individuals receiving welfare benefits continue to get the temporary assistance they need and deserve,” he said.

Recipients who violate the ban would lose benefits for one month for a first-time offense and three months for a second. A third strike would permanently boot the offender from the program.

Welfare recipients receive both food stamps and cash assistance for other needs — to help defray the cost of housing, utility expenses and clothing — under the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program.

A family of four could receive a maximum $668 in monthly food-stamp benefits plus $433 in cash- assistance benefits.

People who qualify for welfare receive an “electronic benefit transfer” debit card to access their cash assistance.

Currently, recipients can use the card to buy cigarettes and booze or spend an afternoon at the racetrack or strip club.

The Libous measure would specifically bar recipients from using their EBT cards to make withdrawals from ATMs in liquor stores, betting parlors and sex clubs.

Cheats and frauds

From Fox 5/AP:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is upgrading technology used to combat a swindle of the nation's $64.7 billion food stamp program that diverts as much as $330 million annually.

The goal is to decrease food stamp trafficking, where retailers trade customers lesser amounts of cash for stamps. Authorities say the stamps are then redeemed as usual by merchants at face value, netting them huge profits.

The practice is a federal criminal offense. Authorities say the crime has brought 597 convictions nationwide and recovery of $197.4 million since 2008.

From the NY Post:

As the state looks to root out Medicaid abuse, the office charged with investigating fraud in the program has shrunk to just four people.

The state Office of the Welfare Inspector General is half the size it was in 2007 and about a third its size of a decade ago.

There are just two special investigators left on staff — down from six in October 2007.

OWIG handled 217 investigations in 2007 but merely 109 last year.

From the NY Post:

The State Liquor Authority is cracking down on tax-dodging city bodegas that smuggle cases of beer in from New Jersey.

A growing number of local shop owners load up their vans and trucks with beer from Jersey discounters to save nearly $6 a case in fees and taxes.

From Metro:

The city announced yesterday that it is suing a Manhattan smoke shop that allows patrons to roll their own cigarettes, only days after a Queens man was arrested for allegedly selling thousands of counterfeit, untaxed cigarettes.

New York has filed suit against Island Smokes, a Chinatown-based shop that city officials say evades cigarette taxes by providing customers with tobacco, rolling papers and access to machinery that rolls their cigarettes for them.

“They are trying to get around the law by claiming they’re not in the business of selling cigarettes when they clearly are,” said Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Island Smokes argues that they don’t sell manufactured cigarettes and therefore cannot be taxed.

The suit comes after the Queens district attorney office filed charges against Abdus Shahed, 31, on Friday and confiscated 5,000 cartons of cigarette from his home in Woodside, Queens. Officials also found $96,000 in cash there. Nearly 2,000 of those cartons were counterfeit, officials said.

We're regulated to death

From the NY Post:

The Empire State ranked 50th in George Mason University's biannual "Freedom in the States" rankings.

"New York has by far the highest taxes in the country," the study reads, citing steep levies on property, income and corporations compared to other states.

The high taxes, in turn, fuel massive spending, according to the analysis by George Mason's Mercatus Center, a libertarian think tank.

"Spending on public welfare, hospitals, electric power, transit, employee retirement . . . are well above national norms," concludes the report, which covers the 2007-through-2009 period.

Ranking worst in the categories of economic freedom and fiscal policy, New York also landed near the bottom for the categories of personal freedom (48th) and regulatory policy (40th).

The study cites New York's restrictive gun-control and anti-smoking laws and sky-high cigarette taxes and the Big Apple's ban on trans fats.

The researchers also slam New York's "excessive" home-schooling regulations and its strictest-in-the-nation health-insurance rules.

The authors rap New York for curbing the rights of individual property owners. "Eminent domain abuse," the report says, "is rampant and unchecked."

No kidding!

Vallone vs. e-cigs

Black market cigarettes costing us a bundle

From the NY Post:

The underground tobacco market is spreading like a fast-growing cancer in the wake of tax hikes that make New York cigarettes the most expensive in the nation -- and it's costing the state tens of millions a month in lost tax revenue, a Post analysis has found.

Illegal cigarettes are pouring into neighborhood bodegas by the truckload from neighboring Indian reservations, lower-tax states in the South and even as far away as China, authorities say.

Government data show that New York state is being smoked out of as much as $20 million a month from all these illegal cigarette purchases -- an estimated 7.3 million packs a month sold off the state tax radar.

Cops pinched for phony bust

From the Daily News:

Two cops from Brooklyn's embattled 81st Precinct were charged Friday with making a trumped-up arrest - in a sting operation caught on video.

Like a couple of Keystone Kops, Sgt. Raymond Stukes and Officer Hector Tirado barged in on an Internal Affairs Bureau integrity test actually targeting another cop, sources said.

The undercover IAB officer, carrying a backpack filled with packs of cigarettes, was talking to the intended target when Stukes and Tirado showed up at the corner of Chauncey St. and Howard Ave. in Brownsville on Sept. 3.

Unaware that IAB was videotaping the action, Stukes and Tirado began questioning the undercover cop conducting the sting.

He told them the cigarettes had legitimate tax stamps, but they hauled him into stationhouse and ended up hitting him with bogus charges: that he tried to sell bootleg cigarettes to two people.

"The (arrest) paperwork was inconsistent with the events that took place on that date," said Assistant District Attorney Gregory Marshall at an arraignment in Brooklyn Supreme Court.

Stukes and Tirado pleaded not guilty to felony perjury charges and were released on their own recognizance. Their lawyers declined to comment.

Recycle your butts!

From the NY Post:

Stomped-out cigarette butts -- the blight of many a Big Apple sidewalk -- would be collected and recycled as part of a statewide environmental program included in a bill proposed by a Queens assemblyman.

Democrat Michael G. DenDekker, who drafted the bill last week, wants to slap a one-cent deposit on every cigarette sold in the state, similar to the deposit on cans and bottles. He hopes it will stop people from littering, or inspire others to pick up the butts.

Queens man owes $19M in taxes

Deadbeat butt-head owes 'red' state NY $19M
By FREDRIC U. DICKER and MAGGIE HABERMAN, NY Post

The No. 1 New York state tax deadbeat is a Queens man who owes an eye-popping $19 million on cigarette taxes, newly released records show.

Gui Hong Chen, an Elmhurst man according to state records, tops the list of 200 corporate tax deadbeats, which was released along with the 200 top personal income tax cheats.

Chen owes $19,049,250, records show.

Gov. Paterson has said he wants to create a tax amnesty program to help reap the hundreds of millions in back taxes for the state's budget as it swims in red ink.

But he'll have a tough time collecting from Chen, 31, who recently served time in a federal pen for a raft of charges including trafficking in contraband cigarettes and dealing counterfeit tax stamps, according to state tax officials and the federal Bureau of Prisons.

A prisons spokesman said he was released last February to federal immigration officials, who didn't immediately respond to calls for comment.

In February 2007 he was busted in Alaska by US Customs agents trying to flee the country.

Other names of note on the list of personal income tax delinquents is the Rev. Al Sharpton, who has a new debt notice of more than $100,000 and an overall debt of nearly $1 million.

From the NY Times:

Desperate for cash amid the worst fiscal crisis in years, New York State is pursuing tax debtors more aggressively than ever before, doubling the number of cases it is investigating and seeking to collect from delinquents ranging from JPMorgan Chase to an out-of-business convenience store on the Bowery.

Since the start of 2008, the state has filed more than 340,000 tax “warrants,” public notices of delinquency that can make it harder to get loans or sell property and can lead to garnished wages or even forfeiture proceedings. By the end of this year the state’s Department of Taxation and Finance will have filed the largest number of warrants ever in a single year and settled about a million open cases, the most in state history.

Tribal chief vs. Bloomberg

From NY Magazine:

Mayor Bloomberg, along with Representative Peter King, wrote an August 4, 2008, editorial arguing that cigarette sales on reservations should be taxed—one line insinuated that cigarette-smuggling money might go to terrorists. Chief Wallace is still riled about it. “We got blamed for the MTA deficit! Phenomenal, man. Supporting terrorism. It upsets me because this is our land, whether we occupy it or not. It’s still our land, and we defend our homeland against all enemies, domestic and foreign.”

On August 25 of this year, a federal-court judge in Brooklyn handed down a verdict addressing the Unkechaug’s motion to dismiss. Federal Judge Carol Amon denied the motion and ruled that the state appellate court had misinterpreted the law in question. She ruled that regular tax law indeed applied to the tobacco trade on Indian reservations, as it does everywhere in the state. She issued a temporary injunction banning all further cigarette sales at four stores identified in the city’s suit. Chief Wallace and the Unkechaug appealed. On September 25, the court announced that though the appeal would be heard, the injunction would continue. But that leaves ten other smoke shops in the Poospatuck reservation, and the cars are still backed up around Squaw Lane. “The city will go after every dollar that is owed to city taxpayers,” said Bloomberg in a statement.

Wallace is far from ready to smoke the peace pipe, however. He says it’s the same as it was with whaling in the seventeenth century. “The goal here is not to stop us from selling cigarettes,” Chief Wallace said. “It’s to try and destroy us as a people, because every effort that we made to resolve these things has met with resistance. They don’t want to do it. They want to take it as far as they can to try and kill us.

“They need a scapegoat for not blaming his friends on Wall Street,” said the chief, his tone slowly rising. He began pacing in circles, literally hopping mad. “Who is a convenient scapegoat? The smallest tribe in New York, selling a demonic product—that’s a good scapegoat.”