Principal at Forest Hills High School is terrible at his job

 

Queens Chronicle

 
Teachers at Forest Hills High School have become increasingly disturbed by incidents in the building, including fights, drug usage and even one instance in which a student threw urine into a classroom.

One teacher described the fourth floor of the building as “The Wild West Show.”

In a poll last Thursday, UFT members voted no confidence in Principal Ben Sherman, who has held the spot since early 2017, by a 195-21 vote.

Adam Bergstein, United Federation of Teachers chapter president of Forest Hills High School, said he heard from many different people in the school.

“The concerns were brought to me from every different constituency in the building and I mean, administration ... teachers were fed up and overwhelmed and disgusted, the aides in the building, students,” he said.

Bergstein added, “Ninety percent of the staff feel as though the principal is incapable of managing Forest Hills High School and, or maintaining the building at the level it’s been at for decades.”
A main issue has been theft, which teachers say has increased since Sherman removed aides from the locker rooms.

Sherman could not comment because he was not cleared to do so by the Department of Education

 According to UFT Consultative Council minutes from a Dec. 6 meeting acquired by the Chronicle, a physical education teacher said a locker room attendant is needed, to which Sherman said safety and hallway issues predate him and that the hallways significantly improved. A teacher responded by saying groups of students still congregate all over the building.

“Mr. Sherman answered that some of these problems are not fixable; there are 24 staircases and there will always be students roaming, vaping and smoking,” according to the minutes.

“There’s pot almost every day,” a history teacher said. “And usually it’s the students smoking in the bathrooms or the stairwells. He doesn’t have a policy anymore for getting kids to class and not being late like the previous principal did.”

One teacher said Sherman indicated marijuana is legal in many states and would soon be in New York.

Cigarette, non-functional alarm cause of child's death

From PIX 11:

Smoking caused the Queens apartment fire that killed a 12-year-old boy on Sunday, according to the FDNY.

Fire marshals reported that the cause of the fire was accidental and related to smoking. The building's smoke alarm was also not operational.

Ass Hat At Rockaway Beach

How Smoking Is Affecting Young People's Brains

Blissville chemical company in hot water

From WPIX:

Luis Rodriguez is one of four men who recently shared their inside view of Ronbar Laboratories in Long Island City.

The factory off of Van Dam Street is where Rodriguez along with Carlos Vega, Courtney Lloyd and Pedro Hernandez worked for more than a combined 40 years, until they say it just got be too much.

“I was shocked to see what was going on,” said Vega.

“In my opinion, the owner did not care,” Lloyd added. “The safety of the public, his own safety, he did not care.”

The man that Lloyd says did not care is Sheldon Borgen, the owner of Ronbar Laboratories, a company that specializes in the production of cleaning supplies. But in a civil complaint filed in Queens County Court, the former employees state that in reality Ronbar maintains a workplace riddled with incredibly dangerous violations.

The former employees allege in the complaint that the company disposed of chemicals by dumping them into open sewers and pipes. Rodriguez said that the marching orders from management were simple: You don’t like it, you can get out.

The workers are alleging there were numerous federal, state and local laws, rules and regulations that were violated. One of those alleged infractions is not only prohibited by OSHA, but the city has banned it for more than a decade.

The New York City Smoke-Free Air Act of 2002 made the act of smoking illegal for businesses housed inside of buildings, factories and warehouses. However, inside the facility where highly flammable pure alcohol is alleged to be exposed, PIX11 News obtained video of a Ronbar employee smoking on the floor of the facility.

Smoker joker

This guy was shamelessly spitting and smoking inside the 7 in Corona.

I told the operator when I got off but I don't know if they did anything.

Anyway I wish there was a way to publicly shame these people.

José
East Elmhurst

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.

All it takes is one jerk...

Hi Craps,

This last Monday on Memorial Day at Francis Lewis Park dozens of families with their children were enjoying of a beautiful day.

While this was going on this fifty something year old guy was drinking Coronas (Beer) right in the playground where his children, my grandson and those of other people were playing around, not content with the boozing display he was also smoking right outside the very gate to the playground next to where he was seating like all the attendants couldn’t smell the disgusting second hand smog.

What a shameful example to give to his children (because if he wasn’t accompanying any children which by the way I didn’t see while I was there that would be another violation of park usage), teaching them to drink in a public place while having a smoke where it’s also considered inappropriate.




He was not only disrupting the enjoyment of that part of the day for many attendants to the playground but he also was breaking several laws. As usual there wasn’t any police or park employee presence in the park (or any other park in North Queens) to have him rightly fined for his imbecilic behavior.

Way to go boozer, what’s next? Drugs and public sex in the park where children play?

- Anonymous

Homeless sex offenders living near school

From Eyewitness News:

Outside the Skyview Men's Shelter, the men hang out in the evening for a smoke or a drink.

There are 174 homeless men in the shelter, and as many as 30 at any one time, are serious level two or three registered sex offenders.

They live two blocks from an elementary school.

"Once a sex offender always a sex offender and it's too close to the school," a concerned parent said.

At PS 124, there was a sometimes raucous meeting with city officials and parents who say nobody talked to them before turning a family shelter they embraced, into a men's shelter they're afraid of.

Now parents can't let their kids walk to or from school alone.

Too many hookahs spoil the air

From DNA Info:

The recent proliferation of hookah shops in Little Egypt might be harmful to children’s health, even if they are just passing by on the sidewalk, parents say. 

While some restaurants in “Hookah Central,” on Steinway Street between 25th and 28th avenues, require customers to smoke indoors, other venues have set up chairs in front of entrances, where people enjoy smoking while sipping coffee. And while the smell of apple and mango flavored smoke gives the area its unique character, some parents say the air has become unhealthy. 

“It’s not good for the baby,” said Selna Ael, who on Tuesday afternoon was walking outside the hookah shops with her 6-month-old son, Ali. An Iraqi immigrant, Ael said even though hookah smoking is popular in her homeland, she often avoids Steinway Street to protect her newborn from too much smoke. 

Mustakin Khondkir, 34, a father of two children, ages 4 and 6, agreed about the potential danger. “I quit smoking for my kids, but now they have to inhale all this hookah smoke,” added Khondkir, a cab driver, who has lived in the area for 17 years. “In the last two years the situation has been out of control.” 

A spokeswoman for the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said hookah lounges are not subject to smoke regulations as long as the hookahs are tobacco free. A police source confirmed the 114th Precinct receives numerous complaints about smoke from a growing number of hookah venues on Steinway Street, especially during summer. The source added that it is illegal to place chairs outside without a permit.

Smoking ban for all multi-family housing?

From Crains:

Public transportation, restaurants, bars and parks have all gone smokeless. Now one of the earliest and most vocal advocates of those bans in New York has his eye on the final prize: a prohibition on smoking in all multi-family residences.

Roughly five years after he began pushing for a smoking ban in two co-ops in his Bayside, Queens, neighborhood, Phil Konigsberg is broadening his sights. Late last year, he proposed a draft resolution to the City Council on behalf of the Bay Terrace Community Alliance Inc., a northeast Queens civic association representing 18 local co-ops and condos. He's asking the city to do what it did on beaches just last year: snuff out smoking in condos and co-ops citywide.

“I think that smoke-free housing is something that needs to be done because there's no way that when someone smokes in an apartment it stays in that apartment,” said Mr. Konigsberg, first vice president of the BTCA and a member of Queens Community Board 7.

To date, he has tried unsuccessfully several times to have the boards of his 120-unit co-op, Bay Country Owners—on which he sits—and its sister 120-unit co-op, Bell Owners Corp., impose a ban. Oddly enough, it's those failures that have convinced him that, as he put it, the “best route to go is to get a city law to pass.”

Smoking in cars carrying kids to be banned

From Forest Hills Patch:

State Sen. Toby Stavisky, D-Forest Hills, and state Assemblyman David Weprin, D-Little Neck, are calling for the state to prohibit smoking in vehicles in which minors are present and fine violators up to $100.

Under the bill, smoking in passenger cars, vans or trucks would be illegal when youths, ages 14 and below, are present.

“It is of upmost importance to protect our children, whose bodies are still developing and who often do not have a voice of their own,” Weprin said.

The legislation would extend the Clean Indoor Act, which was enacted to prevent smoking in city restaurants. In November, smoking was also banned at Long Island Rail Road platforms and stations.

Minors barred from smoking hookah

From the Queens Chronicle:

State legislation barring minors from hookah smoking or buying hookah-related products went into effect on Jan. 1, after Gov. Cuomo signed the bill into law last July.

The legislation regulates a product and business trade that until now has gone largely unregulated.

Hookahs are waterpipes traditionally used in Middle Eastern countries for smoking “shisha,” a fruity, herbal substance that can contain tobacco. Hookah bars and shops selling hookah products are prevalent throughout New York and Queens.

Regulating hookah smoking became a hot-button issue in recent years after the practice experienced a surge in popularity, especially among young people.

Many believe smoking shisha is less harmful than tobacco, or that smoking tobacco through a waterpipe is better for you than smoking cigarettes. But a 2005 study from the World Health Organization found that hookah smoking carries the same health risks as cigarette smoking.

Hookah smoking is popular in many neighborhoods, including Astoria. Hookah lounges and shops line Steinway Street, from 25th to 28th avenues.

“People do say there’s no tobacco in it,” said Sheelah Feinberg, the director of the NYC Coalition for a Smoke-Free City. Regardless, she added, “there’s so many chemicals that go into it, that [it] harms your lung system.”

To hookah or not to hookah?

From the Daily News:

Despite popular belief, scientists have recently discovered that hookah smoke contains at least two cancer-causing elements - and can be just as addictive as cigarettes, says a recent Harvard Medical School study.

Someone who smokes a hookah for 45 minutes to an hour at a rate of two 10-second puffs per minute is inhaling 10%-to-50% more nicotine, says a 2009 study published in the Current Science journal.

Sheepshead Bites reports that local pols State Senator Marty Golden, Assemblyman Alec Brook-Krasny and Council Member Vincent Gentile all have pending legislation that would ban or limit hookah smoking.

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!

Bloomberg forgets he pushed for smoking ban

From the Daily News:

Smokers needn't worry about the city's new law banning smoking at beaches and parks - because Mayor Bloomberg said Friday the NYPD won't police it.

"The police will not be enforcing this. That's not going to be their job," Bloomberg told a caller to his WOR-AM radio show.

"This is going to be enforced by public pressure."

The mayor said cops don't enforce the law against smoking in playgrounds, and they're too busy fighting crooks and terrorists to crack down on park smokers, too.

"On the beaches there's some Parks Department people" to make New Yorkers comply with the new law, Bloomberg said.

"Mainly it's just everybody's going to turn to you and say, 'Hey, you shouldn't be smoking.' And you know, most people listen."

Bloomberg incorrectly told his radio audience the idea came from the Council in the first place.

The ban was first proposed by his health commissioner, Thomas Farley, in September 2009 - and though Bloomberg balked at first, he eventually supported it.

"I probably wouldn't have thought about it if it wasn't for the public going to the City Council and the City Council coming to us," Bloomberg said.

"The City Council came to the mayor, but the City Council heard from the public, and it was the public that said, 'I don't like the cigarette butts in the sand and people smoking upwind. I have to breathe it.' "

Bloomberg's latest head-scratching comment comes after he bashed the Irish for being an "inebriated" bunch and encouraged New Yorkers to take in a Broadway show just after the Christmas weekend blizzard.

Legislation to extend smoking rules to hookah bars

From NY1:

A Brooklyn lawmaker is trying to extend the city’s indoor smoking ban to hookah bars.

City Councilman Vincent Gentile is expected to introduce a bill this week that would add all non-tobacco smoking products – including the legal herbal smoke – to the city's ban.

Gentile argues hookah smoke, containing tar and carbon monoxide, is just as dangerous as cigarette smoke.

Under the proposal, no new hookah bars would be allowed to open beginning in 2012.

Existing hookah bars would be required to register with the New York City Department of Health, and would not be allowed to expand or change locations.

Pete's butt-ing in

From the NY Post:

A city councilman wants a filtered version of Mayor Bloomberg's plan to curb smoking at parks, pedestrian plazas and beaches.

Peter Vallone (D-Queens) believes the mayor's proposed ban -- which has the endorsement of Council Speaker Christine Quinn -- is going too far, and he plans to introduce legislation to lighten it up.

Vallone, a self-described "health nut" who supported the mayor's 2002 smoking ban in restaurants and bars, wants to nix the suggested restriction on puffing on pedestrian plazas.

He also wants to create smoking zones in parks and on beaches larger than two acres. He supports the concept of curtailing smoking on beaches and in parks because "too many smokers seem to believe they have a right to flick their cigarette butts wherever they happen to be."

Bloomberg, through a spokesman, declined comment on the proposed legislation.

Park smoking ban in the works?

From Fox 5:

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he is now leaning toward a ban on smoking on beaches and in parks in New York City.

It is a reversal for the mayor, who just last month was not considering a ban, according to statements made by his press secretary.

But, at a press availability on Tuesday, Bloomberg admitted he was considering a ban.

"When you ask people in parks or on beaches they say they just don't want smokers there," Bloomberg said.

But he also tried to frame the problem as a litter issue as much as a health issue saying, "People take their cigarette butts and packages and just throw them away."

Bloomberg's health commissioner, Dr. Thomas Farley, has been advocating a ban since last September. At that time, Bloomberg didn't think it was something his administration could get done.

Dr. Farley has said that children shouldn't even have to look at adults smoking.

Quality-of-life on the decline in Astoria

From indiejourno.com:

For the last couple of months, Norwood Gardens, Astoria resident Helen Carter has been waking up on weekends to find broken liquor bottles in her backyard. Donnelly Marks, another Norwood resident filled an entire bag with trash found on her block even as she walked her dog one Saturday morning.

The long time Astoria residents have been noting with increasing dismay the deteriorating quality of life in the quiet Astoria neighborhood of Norwood Gardens- thanks to a huge influx of bars and drunken visitors on 30th Avenue between 36th and 37th Street.

“People treat the street as their own private trash cans,” said Marks, referring to the bar-goers on 30th Avenue. “They empty their ashtrays on the street, dump trash, and broken bottles. People who come here don’t have any investment in the community,” she said

Over the last two years, Astoria’ 30th Avenue has seen a huge spike in the number of outdoor cafes, bars and restaurants. While the neighbors have welcomed the commercial activity in the area, they are annoyed by increasing noise levels in the area and the inconsiderate party-goers.

“They are waking working families at 3 and 4 a.m. with their street brawls,” said Marks, who lives off the busy commercial avenue. “They rev their engines, speed day and night and are destroying our private property, she said, adding a resident’s dog had been run over by a speeding SUV.

During the first six months of the year, noise in Community Board 1, which includes Astoria and parts of Long Island City, sparked more than 3,400 complaints to the city’s 311 line.

But more than the noisy bars, the lack of parking spaces and the party goers, residents say they are just asking for a little consideration from the revelers even as they mourn the loss of their neighborhood’s character.