Epstein compares unlicensed pedicabs to unlicensed alcohol sales
Epstein says an unlicensed alcohol seller would be shut down easily, but unlicensed pedicabs seem harder to stop. He asks why enforcement is so difficult and what additional tools DCWP would need for on-street enforcement.
Yeah, I hear you.
And I'm just having a hard time figuring out, like, if we are having a problem of, like, three-quarters of this industry is illegal, and we all acknowledge it's a problem, and we acknowledge that we need to do better enforcement to fix the problem.
And we do have existing...
tools.
You know, obviously we want to give you more tools.
But it's, you know, it's like if someone's, you know, if I tomorrow wanted to go and start selling alcohol at a store around the corner from my house, I don't have a license to do it.
I would just get shut down.
It would be easy to shut me down and the state liquor authority and everyone else would be like, you can't do that.
But I don't know why it seems like when we see unlicensed activity, they're basically taking advantage of tourists and sometimes New Yorkers, why this seems like it's a harder effort.
And so that's what I'm struggling with here.
I think for us, you know, I think the on-street enforcement,
creates a challenge for us with the tools that we have available.
So what tools would you want to have available if you were going to do on-screen enforcement then?
What additional tool would be helpful?
I don't know if pushing the agency into on-screen enforcement is the right approach for this work, given the fact that we are not, you know, our inspectors are not equipped for that.
I think the strength of this agency, as we've showcased over the past year, if not more, is our ability to bring enforcement actions through investigations against larger players in the industry.
I know in the context of ticket sellers...
But, Carlos, why stay involved in this industry at all, then?
If, like, it's not leaning into your strengths...
Why do we just not, you know, you can still license and let enforcement happen in other places because it doesn't seem like NYPD has the tools.
They're struggling.
Why are we not thinking creatively about a better way to do enforcement here?
And I think that's what I think Councilmember Brewer and we're trying to get at here.
It's like we have a problem that we should be able to fix here.
And, you know, I think we're dancing around that a bit.