A police officer is already stationed every day at the 93rd Street entrance. Still, there have been several thefts. Neighborhood kids are allegedly being targeted by the “Money Comes First” gang, a gang linked to the Crips. The alleged gang members have intimidated and bullied their victims, swiping mostly cellphones while students are walking to and from school.

One student’s phone was stolen on Dec. 13 before school, and another student was targeted just one week later outside the 92nd Street entrance.

Councilmember Brewer spoke with principals of nearby schools who have reported similar problems.

MIDTOWN LIBRARY SET FOR MAJOR RENOVATIONS
The New York Public Library’s main branch is getting a very expensive makeover. The work will begin this summer in a renovation worth $300 million. The project will create a multi-level atrium complete with views of Bryant Park inside the Fifth Avenue landmark.
The plan stirred up some controversy when it was initially proposed that millions of books be moved into storage. But no worries, bibliophiles: The New York Public Library changed course in their latest plan, stating that 3.3 million of the original library’s 4.5 million research volumes will remain in the building while the rest are placed in storage.

Despite fewer books, library president Tony Marx calls the renovation “the greatest that this building has seen in its history.”

Construction will begin this summer, and is expected to be completed by 2018. The library will remain open.

NYPD LAUNCHES NEW APP
Feel a little bit safer on New York City streets with the newly released NYPD free iPhone and iPad application. The app features wanted sections to view breaking news, wanted posters, crime and NYPD videos, and the NYPD Facebook page. You can also look up crime statistics and precinct boundaries, as well as submit crime tips. There’s even a section on how to join the Police Department. The NYPD hopes the app will allow for faster and easier public information. Now city residents from all walks of life can help fight crime on the go.

CITY PARKING RATES TO INCREASE
It is not such a happy new year for New York City’s motorists. Starting Friday, Jan. 25, the Department of Transportation will be increasing parking-meter rates south of 96th Street in Manhattan. The new rate is $3.50 an hour, or $.50 for 8:34 minutes. That’s up from $3 an hour. By the end of January, all single-space parking meters will be replaced by muni-meters citywide. There is one silver lining, though: Be glad you don’t live in Chicago, where hourly rates soared to $6.50.

‘PIPPI’ PUPPET SHOW BACK IN CENTRAL PARK
The Swedish Cottage Marionette Theater has brought back its 2007 hit puppet version of Pippi Longstocking, Pippi. The show premiered Jan. 15 and features over two dozen marionettes. Award-winning playwright Zakiyyah Alexander brings this fun-loving children’s classic to the stage, and laugh along as the imaginative redhead overcomes bullies and burglars with her friends.

Reservations required. Busy this winter? Not to worry—the show will run until June. The marionette theater is located near West 79th Street in Central Park. Tickets cost $8 for adults and $5 for kids under 12. Visit the City Parks Foundation website, www.cityparksfoundation.org, for tickets and showtimes.

DISAPPEARING SCOOTER
An Upper East Side resident’s scooter disappeared on Friday when she parked it along Central Park. The 46-year-old arrived at West 64th Street around 8 p.m., then left the vehicle, a red Yamaha Vino, on the street to go about her business in the city. When she returned, the vehicle was gone. She reported the missing scooter to the police, but no nearby security cameras were available to give any clues to the theft.

UNFAIR FIGHT
A group of young girls ganged up on a woman outside her West 66th Street workplace last week to rob her. The woman walked out of her office at 5 p.m. on Friday and was approached by four strangers. One of the young girls began to accost her, then launched into an attack, punching her head and body. The other three girls quickly joined the melee. One grabbed the woman’s purse during the assault, then the four fled toward Columbus Avenue. The woman was left bruised and with cuts, but reported no serious injuries. Her purse contained a yellow metal ring, numerous credit cards and her passport.

GRAND LARCENY
Over $250,000 was stolen from a West 64th Street resident after she gave her personal information to a fake credit card worker. The theft began last month when the woman, 57, received a call from a stranger who claimed to work for American Express. The stranger told the woman the credit card company needed her personal identification number, and she gave it to the caller. The woman recently checked her bank account and realized that over a quarter of a million dollars was missing, charged throughout the month to expenses in the city and out of state.

DRUG BUST WITH A CHASE
Two young men were busted during a drug deal on Wednesday, Nov. 14, but one tried to get away. Cops saw the 24- and 25-year-olds exchanging marijuana and money on a street corner along West 59th Street at around 5 p.m. The officers approached the men and began to arrest them, but the 25-year-old lashed out, kicking his arresting officer in the shin and punching him in the head, then fleeing into oncoming traffic as the officer recovered. The cops on the scene could not pursue the perp, but he was apprehended just down the road by other officers as he attempted to escape.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

A police officer shot and killed a pit bull in the East Village at approximately 4:25 p.m. on Monday.

The officer was one of four to respond to a call to check on the dog’s owner, who appeared to be passed out on a sidewalk at 14th Street and 2nd Avenue in front of a KFC. When the officer attempted to wake up the man, the dog allegedly lunged at him, and he opened fire.

Neighboring businesses, friends and residents at the scene told DNAinfo that the man had come to the U.S. from Poland, and that he and his dog frequented that corner. He was 29 years old, suffered from epilepsy and had frequent seizures, they said.

A witness who called himself a friend of the unconscious man told the Local East Village that the man is known as Pollock and that the dog was named Star.

An East Village resident on the scene said to Gothamist that at first the officers were “not aggressive” towards the man or the dog. “The dog was barking very loudly, as though it were protecting its turf,” the resident said. The officers sprayed mace at the dog, according to the resident, then shot it when it advanced towards them.

“There were a lot of people around, and I didn’t hear them tell anyone to clear off,” the resident told Gothamist. “There was a little boy closer to the scene with his dad, and he started bawling.”

Chef Eddie Huang tweeted a photo of the incident, and told the Observer that “everyone around was like: Put the dog out of its misery. The cops left this dog wiggling and flaying, blood coming out of its mouth. They shot it in front of a public bus.”

“He was protecting the owner, like what animals do. He doesn’t know any better, he’s a dog,” a witness told NY1. “They could have handled it differently, rather than shooting the dog.

“I talked to the cop afterwards,” said another witness to NY1. “He was very shaken up. He’s a dog lover and it ruined his week, if not his year. And he did what he had to do to protect himself.”

The unconscious man and the police officer were both transported to local hospitals following the incident, an FDNY spokesperson told DNAinfo.

Photo by thezartorialist.com. Photo courtesy of Flickr Commons.

By Paul Bisceglio

Andrew Rausa celebrated Independence Day on a brownstone stoop in Boerum Hill last Wednesday like countless other Brooklynites: with friends, a grill and a few beers. When an unmarked police car stopped in front of them, he told the New York Times, he thought they might be in trouble for the grill.

Instead, they were all issued summonses for drinking in public.

“We were all kind of stunned for a second,” Rausa said to the Times. “It happened over the gate. It was a very tangible physical divide — when [the police] said the words ‘public property,’ it just didn’t make any sense.”

Convinced that his friend’s stoop was in fact private property, Rausa, a rising third year Brooklyn Law student, pulled up New York’s administrative code on his smart phone and argued with one of the officers that no law was broken.

According to Rausa, the officer replied, “I don’t care what the law says, you’re getting a summons.”

Rausa and his friends decided to plead not guilty to the charge instead of paying its $25 fine. They follow another Brooklyn resident, Kimber VanRy, who received the same summons for drinking on his stoop in 2008. His case was dismissed on a technicality.

Stoop drinking remains a gray area in New York’s open-container law, so the outcome of Rausa’s case may set a new precedent for future court rulings.

Rausa’s court date is to be determined. “My issue is not some yuppie, I-think-I’m-above-the-law issue,” he told the Times. “It’s the fact that I brought to the attention of the police officer that he was not in the right and he was not receptive at all.”

This strange claim raises an important question: How can a law, that is in essence made to target immigrants only, avoid racial profiling?

The answer is quite simple: It can’t. It only takes a little common sense to see that the only ones who will be targeted by those ‘random’ ID checks will be people of color. A white man wearing jeans and who speaks without an accent is much, much less likely to have his legal status randomly checked by the police than, say, his Latino-looking counterpart.

I honestly doubt that people who are in favor of this law will ever seriously argue that this is not the case. However, there are other ways to justify this seemingly discriminative provision. And indeed, this is where we must dive into the real question: Is racial profiling really that bad?

Defenders of the law will say that there is nothing outrageous about it: Show me your papers is just a normal procedure to verify the legal status of suspicious people. If your papers are in order, you have nothing to worry about! And if they aren’t, well, you shouldn’t have been here in the first place.

This justification seems a little borderline to me. Remember that the good ol’ “If you’ve done nothing wrong then what’s the problem?” was once the cornerstone on which fascism was built. You know, having the Stasi secretly listening in on your phone conversations is fine, they are just laying down the law. That kind of stuff. But there needs to be a limit to the state’s ability to intrude in our personal lives. Otherwise, we may just be headed towards an Orwellian disaster.

Predictions of apocalypse aside, let us consider the argument. The law is just because even if it discriminates, the people who are affected are criminals in the first place. Well that’s not entirely true. Even assuming that illegal immigrants deserve to be found out, jailed and exported back to their country of origin, can we really say that this law won’t affect those other immigrants, those who are here legally?

The answer is: not really (yeah I know, spoiler.) Setting people apart because of their color is basic discrimination, even if you don’t arrest them. Racial profiling is a real issue, one that poses a direct threat to one of the most basic fabrics of well-functioning societies: Trust.

I think I owe it to all those skeptics out there to explain my reasoning. Since my reasoning is based on experience, I think it relevant to share those experiences with you. And what better place to experience racial profiling than in our favorite European country? I am referring of course to the cradle of multiculturalism and diversity, our beloved République Française.

You see, France is one of the rare developed countries in the world that upholds a law similar to the ‘Show Me Your Papers’ provision. A police officer is authorized to verify the identity of any person, at any time, without any justification. If said person doesn’t carry their papers, the policeman / woman can take him into custody to verify identity and legal status, and to hold that person for up to 4 hours.

I have personally witnessed several of those so-called controles d’identité. Several conditions are required for such a procedure to take place, conditions which I will now attempt to recreate in the midst of my narrative delirium. Here we go.

First, there needs to be a group of young people. Second, one or more of them has to be Arab, or Black, or some kind of minority. Third, you get a bonus if the group is doing something “suspicious”, like sitting on a bench, for example (damn kids!) But, don’t worry, if being suspicious isn’t your thing, you can also just walk down the street. Remember, you just need to make sure that you are with someone who remotely looks like an immigrant, or (even better!), be one yourself, and you’ll be fine. Moving on.

So you’re sitting on your bench, waiting for a friend, or checking out girls, or feeding the birds, or… (Seriously, what do people do on benches?) Then, as you look around, you realize that you are completely surrounded by three to eight (yes, eight) police officers, usually on bikes (sneaky bastards.) Now the fun can begin.

So the cops form a circle around you and menacingly ask for your ID. I feel that I should emphasize the “menacing” part here. In my own experience at least, I have very rarely met polite and amiable cops, especially when I was with friends of color. Well, maybe in Germany. But ok, so they want to see your papers, up until now nothing too shabby.

In an awesome effort to offer the most complete experience possible, I have devised three (you may clap in awe) different scenarios, that each take into account two variables: Availability of identification documents, and skin color.

First possibility. You don’t have your papers, but you’re white. That usually means you can leave. Unless you seem to associate with potential immigrants. Ok, I was just testing you there, as you will remember that the police would have never approached you in the first place if it wasn’t for your slightly over-tan friends.

Second possibility. You don’t have your papers, and you’re not white either. Free trip to the police station! They take you there, search you from head to toes, sit you down in a cell for 4 hours (always at least 4 hours, sometimes more), don’t give you any food or water, and occasionally insult you or hit you, depending on your reaction to all this. Once they find out that you are a French citizen who just happened not to carry his passport around, they reluctantly let you go. Unless you’re a minor, in which case they will have the pleasure of calling your parents at 3AM so that they can come pick you up.

Ok, now for the third possibility, which is really the one that is of interest to us. You’re not white, but you do have your papers! How lucky is that? Surely they’ll let you go now. Well, not really. In fact, checking your ID is often only the beginning. Then follows the search. Empty your pockets, take off your shoes, let my slightly overweight colleague grab your testicles with his scruffy hands (this actually happened to me.) If you’re lucky, you may even get a private tour of our van for a good’ ole strip search.

All the while, you are of course submitted to intense psychological pressure, with the “good cop” telling you that you’d better give them everything you have and they’ll let you go, while the other grumbles that if he finds anything you’ll spend the rest of your life locked up with a bunch of rats in some kind of medieval torture dungeon. Scary stuff, especially for a 13 year old (my first controle d’identité!)

Now, searches are extremely common during those “routine ID checks”, especially when the conditions are fulfilled (you know, young, foreign-looking, sitting on a bench…) There seems to be this implicit assumption that anyone under 30 carries at least a few grams of pot with them at all times, or maybe a deadly weapon, or an extinct breed of slow loris perhaps.

Well, ok, let’s say they don’t find any of these things, either because you are Houdini’s nephew, or that you actually are innocent (yeah, right.) In theory, that’s when they let you go. In theory. However, if it so happens that they don’t like your face, or think that you gave them too much attitude while the fat one had his hand down your pants, there is always a way to bring you in.

A friend of mine once got arrested (and spent 12 hours at the station) because he was “drunk.” He had had one beer, was neither driving nor aggressive (although understandably slightly pissed off,) and when they later made him blow in the balloon, it turned out he had a little under 0.2g in his blood (the legal limit is 0.5.) Oh, and he was also Lebanese. Of course, in this situation, there is nothing you can do. The more you protest, the more they’ll want to bring you in. And good luck trying to get their name and badge number and filing an official complain. Seriously, you’ll need it.

Ok, enough of the traumatizing French experience. I think you get it. But in case you don’t, or you didn’t bother to read, here are a few conclusions to be drawn:

1. “Random” ID checks and searches always target the same demographic, i.e. people of color.

2. The consequences of these repeated humiliations on new generations of immigrants are multiple and not very positive. Most importantly, the trust between the community and the police, if there ever was any, has suffered a severe blow. In fact, a large majority of French youngsters literally hate the cops. Like, really despise them. This of course leads to a vicious cycle, whereby cops feel hated and insulted everywhere they go, and in turn start hating right back, which only makes things worse, etc. I personally tend to feel less safe when I see a police patrol, even if I have done nothing wrong.

3. Perhaps even more distressing is the consequence of this policy on the general immigrant community, and on their relationship with the rest of the French population. Growing feelings of segregation and discrimination have laid the groundwork for the emergence of an “us versus them” mentality between immigrants and the rest. Being constantly hunted down by the police, and seeing that same police indulging the white kid, you may not feel very welcome. Quite the opposite in fact.

For me, the bottom line is this: Most people don’t really seem to know how absolutely degrading and annoying it is to get searched by the police on a regular basis. Not only does it make you miss out on, you know, your life and plans (“oh, so you have the concert of your life tonight? In that case we’ll let you go… lol”) It also puts you in a mental state where you constantly feel like you have to justify yourself. Like you are constantly being hunted down, and on the run. Even if your only crime is to have been born in another country.

The bottom line is that nobody really wants to go through a police ID check, wether guilty or innocent. It is a humiliating and degrading process during which you are completely powerless and at the mercy of the uniforms. Besides, there is very little control on the individual actions of police officers on duty.

Here’s an experiment for you: Do you best to get stopped by the cops, and when they ask for your ID, ask them to see a badge, or anything that proves that they actually are police officers (a defying and insolent tone works best.) Then close your eyes and count how many second it takes for that stick to hit you on the head.

Now of course I am not saying that all cops are racist redneck bastards who should have no authority but to give parking tickets. Far from it. Police officers are providing an essential service to society and deserve to be valued as such. What I am saying is that policies such as the ‘Show me your Papers’ provision, which was upheld by the Supreme Court, are bound to completely destroy any kind of progress made in the fields of “integration” and ‘tolerance,” and eventually dismantle any kind of trust that could have been fostered between police officers and immigrant communities. Laws such as this are an open invitation to discrimination, simply because they essentially demand from the police that they profile people based on their race. Racial profiling is real. And such laws are tailor-made to encourage it.

A memorial outside of Graham's home. Photo by Hobo Matt.

Richard Haste, the 31-year-old New York City Police officer indicted in the shooting death of an unarmed 18-year-old in the victim’s Bronx home, pled not guilty to charges of first- and second-degree manslaughter on Wednesday.

After turning himself in to the Bronx district attorney’s office, Haste appeared in State Supreme Court along with other officers and the victim’s relatives and supporters. According to the New York Times, Haste’s lawyer, Stuart London, argued that his client had “no choice” but to shoot Ramarley Graham, whom Haste followed on a drug pursuit on February 2 as part of a street narcotics unit. London claimed that Haste had heard from other officers that Graham was armed and fired in self defense when the teen appeared to reach for his waistband.

“ ‘I thought he was going to kill me, so I shot him,’ ” read London from a statement by Haste after the incident.

The Times reported that Robert T. Johnson, the Bronx district attorney, did not think the shooting was justified. “There’s a major difference between exercising caution and pulling the trigger and using deadly force,” he said after the hearing. The Huffington Post reported that he also said, “[Haste] had to know that he did not see a gun.”

About a dozen supporters of Graham’s family gathered outside the courthouse in protest of police aggression, according to the Times. They chanted, “NYPD, KKK, how many kids did you kill today?”

Police union president Patrick Lynch, meanwhile, stood by Haste. “Today, we’re here to show support for a New York City police officer who was put in a terrible position doing a difficult job,” he told the Huffington Post.

Haste was released after posting $50,000 bail.

– Paul Bisceglio

Scout Willis, 20-year-old daughter of divorced movie stars Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, was arrested on Monday for presenting a fake ID to police after being caught with an open beer in the Union Square station.

According to the Daily News, which first reported the incident, Court papers said that a transit cop spotted the Brown University student at 6:30 p.m. with an 8-ounce “Pakistani beer.” The criminal complaint explained that Willis gave the officer a New York ID card with the name Katherine Kelly. The officer continued to question her, and she revealed her actual California ID. “My name is Scout Willis,” she said. “The first ID isn’t mine. My friend gave it to me. I don’t know Katherine Kelly.”

Police charged Willis with two misdemeanors: criminal impersonation and breaking the open container law. She was reportedly released without bail on Tuesday and is scheduled to return to court on July 31. The impersonation charge has the potential to land her in jail, but the Daily News says that is unlikely.

Willis attracted media attention a few months ago with a Twitter feed that claimed she hated her parents and used designer drugs. She later said the tweets were a classroom experiment designed to entice followers with shocking personal details.

The real story here, of course, is of Pakistani beer, which apparently is a real thing. An article on Willis’s arrest in the Los Angeles Times points to the Guardian’s profile of the country’s single brewery, which began shipping to non-Muslim nations last winter after a 1977 exportation ban was lifted.

Every summer, a string of events hit the city that provide, depending on your perspective, either a fun-filled, leisurely day of shopping, eating and entertainment or a hellish, traffic-jamming, noise-making, government-sanctioned takeover of public places. To many, they are just street fairs. Some love them, many enjoy them, and some scratch their heads with wonder at how such things are allowed so often.

There are different types of street fairs permitted by the city: multi-block and single-block. (Block parties, which require only the closing of one block and don’t involve the sale of any goods or services, are categorized separately but must get similar city approvals.) The multi-block events are the big ones that take place on the avenues and span anywhere from a couple blocks up to, on the Upper West Side, 15 blocks. They’re all run for the benefit of nonprofit organizations, from churches to schools to charity groups, and they all have to go through an approval process that lets the community board and local residents weigh in first.

“The street fairs on side streets tend to be to benefit an organization, and one of the requirements, not surprisingly, is that the organization is actually on the street,” said Mark Diller, chair of Community Board 7. “You usually hear a bit of grumbling about parking and amplified sound because people’s homes are right there.”

Diller said that overall, the board doesn’t hear too many complaints about street fairs; some people don’t like them when they happen right in front of their building, but the city doesn’t usually allow the same side street to be closed more than once a year.

While the approval process on the Upper West Side is relatively calm and uncontroversial, Upper East Side community board members have recently been grappling with resident complaints about the sheer number of street fairs and whether ones specifically held for private institutions, like a street closure for a private school’s graduation celebration, should be approved at all.

At Community Board 8’s March meeting, several board members spoke out against specific street closures for relatively small events, based on how the sponsoring organization behaved in the community and how it ran its event. Some opposed allowing Marymount Manhattan College to have a four-hour block party, but supported churches and other schools hosting similar events. One church event drew support from some who pointed out that the church is committed to social service in the community and vitriol from others who called their event “horrible” and “outrageous.” The board disapproved a block party hosted by Lenox Hill Hospital because it’s a private event and not open to the public, as well as two applications from the Central Park Precinct Community Council for two separate block parties because they normally have their meetings on the West Side.

“Let them have their street fairs in Board 7 where they chose to have their meetings,” said David Rosenstein, a sentiment echoed by many members. The board is considering amending their criteria for street fair and block party applications to address the differences between public and private events, as well as tightening the requirements for community involvement.

On the West Side, City Council Member Gale Brewer said that she hears from some people who are vehemently opposed to fairs taking over their streets, but that she also has a unique viewpoint gained by attending every major fair in her district and seeing firsthand how residents interact with the events. She brings a table, sets it up with pamphlets on city and local issues, and spends the day chatting with people who come by. “It’s a lot of work, but I’ve never missed one,” Brewer said.

While some residents have complained that the street fairs cater to visitors at their expense, turning their streets into tourist attractions, Brewer said that the proof is in the depleted stacks of flyers at the end of the day.

“Tourists are not interested in tenant information; I can see that it’s local people,” she said.

The biggest complaints tend to be over traffic—streets are rerouted and curbside parking becomes even tighter than usual when several avenue blocks are closed—and the fear that street vendors are siphoning business from the brick-and-mortar stores that sit just behind the temporary booths. Recently, however, some of the major street fair production companies—like Mort and Ray Productions, which puts on many of the Upper West Side’s major festivals—have been making efforts to accommodate merchants by offering them prime spaces outside of their own stores at discounted rates and agreeing not to place a vendor selling dresses outside of a women’s clothing boutique or a cupcake truck outside of a bakery.

“We take great care to make sure that no one is selling a similar product to merchants,” said Andrew Albert, executive director of the West Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, which produces the Amsterdam Avenue and Columbus Avenue festivals. “We’ve got a very sophisticated computer program that we paid a lot of money for that ensures that doesn’t happen. We also walk the avenue and speak to the merchants and tell them about the fairs.”

He said he’s heard from some small business owners who were delighted to find that street fair foot traffic morphed into regular customers.

“There’s Gazala’s at 78th Street, a Middle Eastern place,” Albert said. “After people sampled their food at the fair, people came back for months afterward. It’s a great way to promote the business.”

Albert stressed that the Chamber of Commerce picks up the entire tab, on top of a fee it pays to the city, to keep the streets clean and safe during and after their events, which is a requirement of all street fairs.

“Everyone thinks there’s tremendous money in it, but there’s really a lot of expenses too,” Albert said. “We hire the Doe Fund to help clean the street afterward; we actually leave the street cleaner than when we found it.” They also employ extra security to supplement the police officers the city sends out, and charge each vendor a sanitation deposit that they only get back if they leave their space spotless.

“People really do vote with their feet,” Albert said. “It’s a day when the street is free of traffic and people are just free to walk and schmooze with our neighbors.”

Upper West Side’s 2012 Street Fairs

24th Annual Broadway Spring Festival, May 6, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m., Broadway between West 93rd and 96th streets

On a Wing: Family Festival, May 19, 12 – 3 p.m., Belvedere Castle, Central Park; Mid-park about 79th Street

Ninth Avenue International Food Festival, May 19-20, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m., 9th Avenue between West 42nd and 57th streets

Amsterdam Avenue Festival, May 20, 12 – 5 p.m., Amsterdam Avenue between West 77th and 90th streets

25th Annual Livable West Side Festival, May 27, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m., Broadway between West 82nd and 86th streets

35th Annual Plantathon and Crafts Fair, June 10, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m., Broadway between West 73rd and 82nd streets

Summer on the Hudson: 10th Annual West Side County Fair, Sept. 9, 1–6 p.m., West 71st Street Basketball Courts

19th Annual Upper Broadway Autumn Festival, Sept. 15, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m., Broadway between West 110th and 116th streets

Columbus Avenue Festival, Sept. 23, 12 – 5 p.m., Columbus Avenue between West 66th and 86th streets

24th Annual Upper Broadway Harvest Festival, Sept. 30, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m., Broadway between West 103rd and 106th streets

20th Annual Upper Broadway Fall Festival, Oct. 6, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m., Broadway between West 110th and 116th streets

21st Annual Broadway Fall Festival, Oct. 14, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m., Broadway between West 86th Street and 90th streets

By Alan S. Chartock

There is a new bill floating around the Legislature that would bar prosecutors and the police from confiscating condoms from “sex workers,” also known as prostitutes.

Prosecutors use the seized condoms as evidence against the prostitutes. Obviously, if sex workers use condoms, both they and their clients are protected from disease. The idea that the police are confiscating the condoms and/or using them as evidence for convicting prostitutes seems ludicrous when we know that the condoms are protecting people. Prostitution in any form is the world’s oldest profession; it will be around long after we are gone. You don’t have to be in the Secret Service to understand this truth.

Naturally, many law enforcement professionals are against changing the law. If they are convicting prostitutes, they don’t want anything standing in their way, even the public’s health.

There is a political subtext to all of this, which comes down to control of the New York State Senate by the Republicans or Democrats. Right now, just a few measly votes are needed for the Democrats to take control of the Senate. The Democrats did such a bad job running their house after they took control a few years back that lots of people were left thinking that the state was better off without them. Maybe that’s why they were kicked out—they ignored the secret of New York politics, which is that if you don’t have the middle class (they vote big time), you can’t win.

In fact, one could surmise that one of the reasons so many of us, based on the evidence, think Gov. Andrew Cuomo prefers to work with the Republicans rather than the Democrats in the Senate is that the Senate Democrats are far more progressive than Cuomo. This is a governor who goes where the votes are. He doesn’t deviate from that. His father was known for doing the opposite, and in the end, it probably cost him his last re-election effort. Just Google “Mario Cuomo death penalty.”

The middle class doesn’t appear to think or care that much about sex workers. That’s why, when State Sen. Velmanette Montgomery stood up to defend the utterly defensible condom bill, she made a point to say, “We are not endorsing prostitution.”

She went on to say, “It is simply the fact that over 100,000 people right now are infected with HIV and AIDS in New York City.”

Sometimes, doing the right thing flies in the face of good electoral politics. My bet is that the Senate Republicans see Democratic Sen. Montgomery’s bill as an early Christmas present. In fact, one has to look no further than to Montgomery’s insistence that she and her conference were not “endorsing prostitution.” When you suggest that you are not doing something, you lead the reader, viewer or listener to the conclusion that you are doing something. In other words, rather than denying something, you are probably better off keeping your mouth shut.

Let posterity record that in this case, I believe the senator is correct. Forbidding the seizure of condoms from sex workers is courageous because it is the right thing to do, even if it isn’t the politically expedient thing to do. In fact, instead of moving to the middle to get more middle-class votes, this bill risks alienating a crucial voting bloc.

If just one life can be saved by encouraging the use of condoms, this bill will be worth it. Sometimes, you just have to do what is right and not what is political. I am waiting to hear Cuomo’s position on this. Just remember, though, that I am not endorsing prostitution.

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