Bodegas, you see, are some of the New York City businesses that will clean up at the expense of the “little guys,” like pizza parlors and McDonald’s, if, as expected, Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s new soda policy goes into effect in September. That was just one of several hollow arguments opponents made at last week’s Board of Health public hearing.

The argument, advanced by Council Members Melissa Mark-Viverito and Letitia James, among others, is that because the limit to large sugary drinks applies to restaurants but not many bodegas, supermarkets and candy stores, it sets up an unfair advantage.

Here’s the apparent theory. You go into a shop for a pizza slice. You’re desperate for more than 16 ounces of soda—not so desperate that you’ll buy two or three sodas at the parlor, which would still be permissible, but just thirsty enough to take the slice into the bodega next door and wait on line again to buy a large amount of soda in one container. Or you are so determined to have a Big Gulp that you’ll choose your meal based on the available drink size.

Jimmy Alix, who works at an East Harlem candy store barely wide enough to squeeze in two-liter bottles of soda, is not expecting a rush of business from the pizza shop across the street or the other two a block away from his shop on Lexington Avenue and 124th Street.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “People are going to buy whatever size they have there.”

At least three other nearby places would be permitted to sell large sodas: a small grocery, another candy store and a Pathmark. Large soda consumption would undoubtedly continue, but some people would clearly drink less and, perhaps as important, the debate has likely made many people more aware of how many empty calories they drink.

Former Gov. David Paterson tried to talk truth to powerful bodegas and others a few years ago with a soda tax, but Big Sugar beat him. An industry ad back then showed a small grocery owner saying his customers calculate their food bills down to the penny. It was meant to trigger outrage that working-class people would pay more, but it really showed that the tax would lead to healthier choices.

Another of the absurd arguments by lobbyists and opponents is that it limits free choice. Although not a goal of the Bloomberg plan, it would actually expand choice in places like movie theaters.

The misnamed group leading the opposition backed in part by movie theater chains, New Yorkers for Beverage Choices, didn’t have anything to say about their effort to keep limits on consumer choice.

At least one opponent “expert” said there’s no proof that people will take in fewer calories. It shouldn’t take an Ivy League professor to point out the obvious—people tend to drink all that they are served—but it did.

“The science on this is quite clear:  As people are served larger portions, they generally consume more food,” said Kelly Brownell, director of Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity.

The Council members do care about the problem—James said she sees obesity in her Central Brooklyn district every day and it sends her to too many funerals. They’re right that the policy is not a complete solution, and other measures, like youth fitness programs, may be more helpful. But it seems they’re saying that if you don’t do everything you can to battle obesity, don’t do anything.

David Jones, a plan supporter and CEO of the Community Service Society of New York, said he has spent too much of his career trying to improve social services to wait for the perfect idea.

“I have to do something now,” he said at the hearing, “because this is really ripping through poor communities.”

Josh Rogers, contributing editor at Manhattan Media, is a lifelong New Yorker.

Since 2008, yellow cabs in the city are required to have a touch screen that provides maps, fare information, and a credit payment system. Many of these systems are already provided by CMT. This new tech gives CMT equipped taxis nationwide with audible touch screens. The new monitors will allow passengers to hear fare changes at regular intervals, and provide a new way for the visually impaired to use their credit and debit cards. With the swipe of a special card, or by asking the driver, riders can make the screen accessible to visually impaired. The touch screen is then divided into large, easy to navigate sections that are prompted by step-by-step spoken instructions.

Council Member Vacca and Former Governor Paterson testing the new audible touch screen taxi technology.

“I know that New York City is one of the most difficult places for blind and visually impaired individuals to navigate, because my own father was blind. This issue is personal for me,” said Vacca in an emailed statement. “This technology will make a real difference for people who need it.”

The new touch screens are the latest in a string of pro-accessibility measures championed by Vacca, who is also Chair of the Council Transportation Committee. On March 28 the City Council passed three bills aimed at improving mobility for the visually impaired, including a bill by Vacca that requires the Department of Transportation to post maps online that are accessible to those with sight and hearing disabilities.

*  The redistricting battle rages on as the defendants in a lawsuit challenging the state’s Senate and Assembly lines were forced to answer amended complaints from the plaintiffs. As Times-Union’s Jimmy Vielkind pointed out yesterday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has retained counsel from the firm of Zuckerman Spaeder, which now employs ex-Cuomo Secretary Steve Cohen. The attorney named on the case is Cohen’s partner Paul Shechtman, who taught Cohen in law school. Shechtman’s answer to the more than 100 different stipulations in the amended complaints consists largely declining to answer. There are only a handful of items the governor’s answer admits: the Constitution did create a Senate, and part of the Constitution addresses the Senate’s size; Nassau County used to be part of Queens in the 19th century; that a Constitutional Convention did take place in 1894; and that New York and Brooklyn were “fast growing metropolises”; that LATFOR held public hearings in 2001, and that LATFOR holds hearings in general.

To read the full article at City & State click here.

Lawmakers and tenants groups urged Gov. David Paterson to sign the illegal hotel bill the Legislature passed.

With a Saturday deadline looming for him to veto or sign the bill into law, Paterson’s spokesperson said he is reviewing the legislation.

The bill’s authors, State Sen. Liz Krueger of the East Side and Assembly Member Richard Gottfried held a rally with tenants at City Hall July 21. Nearly every West Side elected official expressed support of the legislation.

Krueger said the bill was one of the rare instances where the city, the unions, trade associations and lawmakers support the same law.

“I believe if [Paterson] reviews the research done by his own counsel and policy staff, reviews the report that was produced and memos of support by pretty much everyone who’s been involved in this issue at all, he will understand how critical it is that he signs this bill,” Krueger said.

Borough President Scott Stringer said the loophole in the law hurts New Yorkers and tourists that stay in these hostels.

“I call on Governor Paterson to quickly sign this bill to ensure that our City’s residential buildings are kept safe from these illegal uses,” Stringer said.

There has been push back from hostel operators that feel they are being targeted for making money off their buildings fairly and providing low-cost accommodations for tourists.

Gottfried, however, noted the law would give the city power to shut down the most egregious illegal hotels that rack up complaints.

“The Buildings Department concentrates on people who are really bad actors,” Gottfried said. “No one ever heard of the city going after someone for occasionally renting out their apartment to an out-of-town visitor. It’s never happened.”

So these three guys walk into a room. That sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it turns out that this meeting is anything but funny. The first man in the room is Speaker Sheldon Silver of the New York State Assembly. He’s the Empire State’s senior serving politician. He’s a canny, brilliant, politically astute guy who, up to now, has known how to win elections.

He is connected to the New York State power brokers and their lobbyists, like the teachers union, and he doesn’t break the paradigm of power. He isn’t about to change the game plan, even when confronted with the likes of former New York City Mayor Ed Koch. Koch, one of the great political phonies of all time, has a penchant for grabbing good issues and riding them. This time, it’s reform of the “dysfunctional” Legislature.

When really pressed, Silver gives a little to the forces of reform in the State Capitol. There are a number of ways to do that. One is to make a good bill into a lukewarm bill that will change little or nothing. That’s exactly what he did with the call for ethics reform. Gov. David Paterson correctly vetoed that joke.

Another Silver specialty has been the famous “one house bill” that he knows will never be passed in the other house. This used to be very easy when the other house was controlled by the Republicans. Now the State Senate is controlled by a group of pathetically inept Democrats who can’t get their act together, so the game is a little more difficult.

The Senate Dems’ leader is John Sampson, and he’s the second man in the room. Like his hero, that other Sampson, he has tremendous strength but is likely to be given a haircut by others in his Democratic Senate conference who just can’t seem to master the skill of playing well together. Sampson was chosen by his conference to pick up the pieces after a group un-herdable cats, among them the infamous crew of Hiram Monserrate, Pedro Espada and Malcolm Smith, came very close to committing hari-kari before our very eyes. Sampson has the respect of many internal players, but the public’s initial impression of the Senate’s ineptitude has been so lasting that no matter how much perfume they put on, the stench persists.

Sampson and Silver recently went along with Paterson’s plan to furlough state workers. A federal judge put that plan on hold and now they are hated by the unions and have little to show for their efforts.

Finally, there is Paterson, the third man in the room. He isn’t running for reelection and he knows that the way to political salvation and historical canonization is doing the right thing. His state is broke and he is trying to get civil servants to forgo pay raises. He is hopelessly outclassed by Andrew Cuomo, who is waiting in the wings but who won’t indicate what needs to be done to right the ship of state. So Paterson has put the spotlight on the Legislature and is holding tough, unable to make the other two guys come up with a plan that will allow New York to live within its means. Come January, he will be out of office and he will smell clean. The newspapers tell him that he’s doing right, but castigate him for being inept. He’s a good guy who deserves more support for what he is trying to do.

In the meantime, back in that room, chaos prevails. The reality is that the state is broke. The little boy who cried wolf is about to be eaten by that very same animal and everyone assumes that somehow this will turn out all right. As William Bendix would have said in The Life of Riley, “What a revoltin’ development.”

Alan S. Chartock is president and CEO of WAMC/Northeast Public Radio and an executive publisher at The Legislative Gazette.

The record-setting townhouse purchased by Henry Silverman (inset left) and wife, Karen Hader (inset right). Patrick mcmullan/evan joseph images, New York Post.

The buyers are Henry Silverman and his wife, Karen Hader, who will have to sit tight in their $4,000-a-month rental at 15 Central Park West until they can move into their new manse, according to the Post.

Keil reports that the townhouse has a garden, two roof terraces, six bedrooms, seven baths, three powder rooms (isn’t “powder room” just a euphemism for “bathroom”? We’re confused, but then again, we only have one bathroom in our apartment).

Silverman, a billionaire, is the former owner of Avis Rent-a-Car and budget hotel chain Days Inn. Coincidentally, not far from Silverman’s new home is the Days Inn on Broadway and West 94th Street, Gov. David Paterson’s motel of choice for extramarital trysts.
But we digress. The point is, if your West Side apartment has a few terraces and powder rooms to spare, you, too, could have a cool $20 million coming your way.