[HK-Online] Latest on NYAT -- March tonight at 7 p.m.

[kitchen]

Hell's Kitchen Online                                5/25/00
http://hellskitchen.net "All the News the Times Won't Print"
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IN THIS ISSUE ...

1. March on NY Apple Tours -- Tonight
2. More reaction from HK readers
3. Cop Crackdown On Tour Buses (Daily News)
4. State Pols Wants to Pare Apple Tours to the Core (NY Post)
5. City Bites Apple Tours (Newsday)
6. Snapshot of New York Apple Tours (Daily News)
7. Owner Took Trip to Top Of Cutthroat Business (Daily News)

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MARCH ON NY APPLE TOURS

-- To remember the victim of this tragedy Randolph Walker

-- To call for the City to shut down NY Apple Tours

-- To demand that Police and Transportation enforce traffic laws.

Today, Thursday, May 25 at 7:00 p.m.

The March will start on the corner of 43rd Street and Ninth Avenue by 
Manhattan Plaza (where Mr. Walker resided), go up Ninth Avenue to 47th 
Street and eastward to 47th and Eighth Avenue to the headquarters of New 
York Apple Tours.

Co-sponsored by: West 44th St. Block Association, West 45th St. Block 
Association, West 47th-48th Streets Block Association, West 51st St. Block 
Association, West 54th St. Block Association, Midtown North Police Precinct 
Community Council, Manhattan Plaza Tenants Association, Clinton Special 
District Coalition.

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MORE HK RESIDENTS REACTIONS

 From Sen. Tom Duane's news release, May 25, 2000:

While the City has begun to take some action against New York Apple, they 
are still refusing to take most actions the the community has asked for, 
and for years have turned a blind eye to the company's wrong-doing. This 
City has the power right now to revoke several New York Apple licenses and 
permits which would effectively stop their business right now, such as 
their Department of Transportation permits allowing them to pick up and 
drop off passemgers and reserve on-street parking spaces for their busses 
at locations throughout the city.

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 From Michael:

The fact that NY Apple tours has over 1800 violations and is still in 
business is completely and utterly outrageous. Midtown North Precinct has, 
for years, completely ignored the concerns and requests of this community, 
policing only what is politically correct and/or being just plain lazy. Why 
do they allow 2000 of those black car/limos to -- nightly -- park illegally 
in our neighborhood, idle their engines and block traffic, causing a 
cacophony of horn honking??

Why do they not respond to our noise complaints and complaints about buses 
and traffic pollution?  Why do Midtown North officers "on patrol" drive 
around with their windows closed, completely oblivious to anything unless 
it suits them?? Why are they always "too busy" to help people who LIVE 
here, when there are five officers standing outside the stage door of the 
Eugene O'Neill theatre helping escort Lauren Bacall to her limo?? Why do 
officers go into West Side Cottage Restaurant and come out with large 
orders of food and no money ever exchanges hands? Come ON folks... how 
obvious can it be?!

I remember a meeting with the Midtown North Precinct over a year ago when 
we were promised that our concerns about increased traffic and pollution 
were being attended to. Has anyone noticed things getting any better? I 
don't know about you, but I'm finding the noise in the neighborhood 
overwhelming, I'm coughing a lot, my windowsills are FILTHY from the diesel 
exhaust pollution and one of our neighbors is dead. It's time we DEMANDED 
accountability from Midtown North and the rest of our city government!

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 From Anonymous:

Thanks for the information, but it is a bit dismaying to see all this sudden
action about tour buses when Councilmember Freed has had legislation
languishing in the council for years, stopped by Vallone and the Mayor.
Check with her office to see details but Tribeca has been having many of the
same problems as hell's kitchen for as long, and the JFK junior death made it
even worse.

Nonetheless, the real issue is that the City, i.e., Rudy has given the tourist
industry total carte blanche at the expense of those of us who live here and
has been doing so for years now. I only wish the press and the public would
let him and Joe Lhotta we know that they are complicit in this poor man's
death.

Note: the legislation was a joint project of Councilmember Freed and then 
Councilmember Tom Duane. Councilmember Quinn is now a supporter of this 
legislation.

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 From David:

On my way home this evening, I saw a Apple Tour Bus parked on the West side 
of 8th Avenue at about 46th street. The bus has a police department notice 
pasted to the windshield on the drivers side. It said the vehicle was "not 
serviceable." I guess the city has stepped up their inspections.

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 From Jane:

Big Apple tours is bad news and that should now be clear now that this poor
man has lost his life.  I point out also that the Gray Line has the same
polluting buses and that incoming diesel-powered tour buses also add
pollution by parking up to 1 hour before pick up of theater goers. So it
really is a three-pronged problem that needs tackling overall. The diesels
park on 44th allowing their motors to idle. So why don't we all take this
opportunity to work on this as a single, major overall quality of life issue?

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COP CRACKDOWN ON TOUR BUSES
Daily News, May 25, 2000
By Robert Ingrassia

The city stepped up its campaign against New York Apple Tours yesterday, as 
cops pulled over numerous red double-decker buses — kicking off passengers 
and issuing summonses.

The crackdown came as the city filed an affidavit before Administrative Law 
Judge Judith Gould requesting "emergency relief" that would suspend the bus 
line's operations until after a license-revocation hearing.

Gould will hold a hearing today on the company's record of alleged 
violations of city, state and federal laws.

"This is a company that creates a risk to public health," Mayor Giuliani 
said yesterday. "We are doing everything we can to temporarily suspend 
their ability to do business."

City officials accuse the company of flouting traffic laws, violating 
parking rules and lying about the ages of its buses to circumvent pollution 
laws.

On Monday, a New York Apple Tours bus killed a 71-year-old actor on W. 45th 
St. near Ninth Ave. The incident fueled renewed criticism of the safety of 
the large buses.

Cops fanned out through Manhattan yesterday, ticketing drivers and taking 
some buses out of service, leaving tourists without a ride. The number of 
summonses issued was not immediately available.

Several ex-employees of the company told the Daily News that New York Apple 
Tours emphasized profits over safety.

Former guides M. Tway Smith and Donna Plotz, joined by two ex-guides who 
asked to remain anonymous, said they worked on buses that routinely had 
brake malfunctions and other potentially dangerous equipment problems.

Smith, Plotz and one of the unnamed former tour guides are among a group of 
ex-workers suing the company in a dispute about overtime pay.

Smith, who left the company in April 1998 after 15 months, said supervisors 
routinely told drivers to continue working on buses with equipment problems.

"There was no culture of safety," said Smith, 52. "When something went 
wrong with a bus and it was radioed in, they'd say, 'Continue the tour. Do 
the best you can.'"

Smith said he recalls supervisors telling a driver to continue a tour in 
the rain, even though the bus' windshield wipers didn't work.

A driver told a similar tale in a deposition over a bus crash. The driver, 
who rear-ended a car on Madison Ave. at E. 51st St. on Feb. 28, 1998, 
testified that he warned a supervisor on the day of the wreck about his 
bus' faulty brakes.

"I said, 'Mike, the brakes on this bus is no good,'" driver Joseph Hillard 
testified. "He said, 'Don't worry about it.'"

Hillard testified that he complained about the brakes again but was told to 
keep driving. About 5 p.m., the bus rear-ended a car driven by Stanton 
Cagney, a former cop, who suffered neck and back injuries.

New York Apple Tours lawyer Patrick Dwyer defended the company's safety 
record, saying it has had a handful of serious wrecks in recent years. He 
said the drivers are well-trained and the buses are well-maintained.

"New York Apple Tours is safe," Dwyer said. "Considering we're on the road 
365 days a year, our safety record is good."

Double-decker tour buses have cruised Manhattan since the early 1990s, when 
several companies began importing used buses from Great Britain.

American-made double-decker buses provided public transportation in New 
York City from around 1900 through the 1950s, when the last bus company to 
use them went bankrupt.

CLEARING THE AIR

New York Apple Tours' fleet is among the worst of buses polluting the city 
— vastly exceeding the federal emissions guidelines of .7 grams of 
particulate per mile for new vehicles. Here's how the company compares with 
city buses:

NEW YORK APPLE TOURS
65 diesel buses
Emissions: 17.7 grams of diesel particulate matter per mile.

CURRENT TRANSIT AUTHORITY BUSES
3,315 diesel buses
Emissions: .66 grams per mile

ALTERNATIVE TA BUSES*
94 compressed natural gas buses
Emissions: .025 grams per mile

HYBRID ELECTRIC BUSES
Five buses
Emissions: .027 grams per mile

*By 2004, the TA plans to have 390 hybrid electric and 650 compressed 
natural gas buses.

Sources: Transit Authority and environmental consultants M.J. Bradley
-- Pete Donohue

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STATE POLS WANTS TO PARE APPLE TOURS TO THE CORE
New York Post, May 25, 2000
By Tom Topousis

A phalanx of state agencies joined the crackdown on New York Apple Tours on 
the eve of today's hearing to boot the firm's double-decker buses from city 
streets.

New York Apple Tours has come under extreme scrutiny since one of its buses 
struck and killed a 71-year-old actor while he was crossing a street in 
Hell's Kitchen on Monday.

An administrative-law judge for the city's Department of Consumer Affairs 
will be asked today to temporarily revoke New York Apple's license to run 
tour buses.

Meanwhile, officials from the state departments of Motor Vehicles, 
Transportation and Insurance began going over the tour-bus company's 
records with a fine-tooth comb.

"We're taking a close look at the company and its operations," said Suzanne 
Morris, a spokeswoman for Gov. Pataki.

Mayor Giuliani said the city is in contact with the state agencies, even as 
the city's Department of Consumer Affairs continues hearings to pull New 
York Apple Tours' license for good.

"We're working very closely with them because they may bring separate 
proceedings against them to revoke the various licenses that they have, and 
we're sharing all the information that we have with them," said Giuliani of 
the state's probe.

Officials for New York Apple Tours did not return calls.

Meanwhile, a federal judge in Newark is deciding on a final order that 
would require New York Apple Tours' buses to comply with federal emissions 
standards.

Late last year, the company admitted to lying to Customs officials about 
the age of the buses imported from London, in order to evade federal safety 
and exhaust-emissions standards.

New York Apple agreed to pay an $800,000 fine.

Federal prosecutors want New York Apple to replace the engines on its 70 
buses with new equipment that meets current air-quality standards - a move 
that could cost $25,000 per vehicle.

New York Apple has asked the judge to let it use even older bus engines 
that would comply with the federal exemption designed for antique vehicles.

State Sen. Tom Duane (D-Chelsea) accused the bus company of trying to 
"manipulate" federal law to keep its diesel-belching buses on the street.

The company, owned by Hayim Grant, has amassed a whopping 1,800 non-moving 
violations since 1997, and its buses have been in 140 traffic accidents 
since 1997.

The driver in Monday's fatal crash wasn't properly licensed. Cops on 
Tuesday, arrested a second New York Apple Tours driver for operating a bus 
with a suspended license.

Giuliani dismissed critics who said the city should have moved more quickly 
against the bus company. The latest city action started in April.

"It takes a record of four or five years in order to bring an action like 
this," Giuliani said. "I can understand why people would be upset about 
this. A death took place. But the reality is that this action was brought 
before a death took place. So they city was trying."

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CITY BITES APPLE TOURS
Will seek to shut it down for violations
Newsday, May 24, 2000
by Pete Bowles and Dan Janison

Prompted by a growing number of traffic violations and accidents involving 
New York Apple Tours buses-including one that killed a pedestrian on 
Monday-the city plans to seek a temporary suspension of the company's 
license tomorrow.

"We have been in a proceeding against New York Apple to revoke their 
license for operating here in New York City," said Deputy Mayor Joseph Lhota.

"We will be ratcheting that up at the present time to move for a temporary 
suspension and not allow them to operate in the City of New York." Lhota 
said the city will ask an administrative judge at the Department of 
Consumer Affairs to declare an emergency, thereby allowing the company's 
license to be suspended temporarily.

The proposed action, announced at a City Hall news conference yesterday, 
follows the death of Randolph Walker, 71, an actor who was struck by a New 
York Apple double-decker bus at Ninth Avenue and 45th Street on Monday. 
Police said the driver, Howard Scott, 41, was given a summons for not being 
licensed to drive a bus.

The accident also set off outcries from residents and government officials 
in the Clinton section who complained that their criticisms of the company 
had gone unanswered for years.

"The death follows years and years of illegal activities and quality of 
life and legal abuses on the part of this company," said Councilwoman 
Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan), whose district includes Clinton.

Residents of the area where the accident occurred said they have long 
complained about the company's operations with no success. Most of their 
complaints have been about hazardous driving, exhaust from idling buses and 
the illegal use of residential streets as bus corridors.

"They are just awful," said Maggie Nachlin, acting director of Community 
Board 4, which also includes Clinton. "They have a long history of bad 
driving, idling, going on streets where they are not supposed to go and 
picking up passengers where they are not supposed to.

"We have written numerous times to the city asking them to take action," 
Nachlin said. "I spoke out against New York Apple at meetings with the 
mayor's office of transportation, and the city has not done anything until 
now." Jean-Daniel Noland, president of the West 47th and West 48 Street 
Block Association, placed the blame on Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and the 
director of the mayor's Office of Transportation, Robert Grotell. "The city 
has had so long to do something about New York Apple and has not acted 
until now," he said.

"Because the economy is booming and there are so many tourists and so much 
construction, I don't think the city has any plan, and they don't know what 
to do with New York Apple," Noland said. "The company must make so much 
money it is able to act with impunity, it seems." But Grotell said the 
city's move to revoke the company's license proves otherwise. "I first met 
with the community last June-it's not a year yet," he said. "Since that 
time we have developed a strategy, and we have been very aggressive with 
this company." The president of New York Apple Tours, Hayim Grant, who gave 
$2,000 in December to the Friends of Giuliani Senate exploratory committee, 
could not be reached for comment yesterday. In a press release on Monday, 
the company said it was "saddened" by the death of Walker and vowed to 
cooperate with the police investigation.

Lhota said that over the last three years the company has received 1,800 
parking and other non-moving violations and been involved in 140 accidents.

During the same period, according to state records, the company has been 
issued 1,400 summonses for traffic violations, many for reckless driving.

New York Apple Tours, which began its tourist service in 1992 with two 
secondhand buses, now owns about 85 buses, employs 150 and last year 
reported sales of $10 million, up 67 percent since 1996, according to state 
records.

In September, the company pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Newark 
and agreed to pay an $800,000 fine for filing false documents with the U.S.

Customs Service and other federal agencies to avoid safety and emissions 
standards on its buses.

"We have been begging the city to do something about this renegade company 
for years," Quinn said. "Sadly this tragedy is just the worst and hopefully 
last of a long line of problems this bus company has caused for the 
neighborhood."

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SNAPSHOT OF NEW YORK APPLE TOURS
from the Daily News, May 24, 2000

President: Hayim Grant, 31
Founded: 1992
Headquarters: 1040 Sixth Ave.
Operations: Provides tours of Manhattan and Brooklyn with red double-decker 
buses imported from Britain.
1999 sales: $10 million
Buses: 65
Drivers: 70

Tour of Trouble

New York Apple Tours has run afoul of city, state and federal laws since it 
began operating in 1992. Here are the company's low-lights:

June 1994 — City orders company to remove 26 of its 30 imported British 
buses for failing to meet federal safety standards.

August 1995 — City shuts down company for switching permits to avoid state 
safety and insurance inspections. A judge lets company resume tours a day 
later.

November 1995 — Inspectors raid company garage in Chelsea and find code 
violations, including unsafe underground gas tanks.

September 1999 — Company agrees to plea bargain with federal regulators, 
admitting it lied about ages of its buses but denying it did so to bypass 
safety and emission standards. Company agrees to pay a $800,000 fine.

October — City begins process of revoking company's license, citing pattern 
of application fraud and traffic violations.

November — City denies company loading zone permit at Eighth Ave. and W. 
47th St., citing chronic traffic violations.

January — Federal tests reveal that double-decker buses, including those 
from Apple Tours, pollute far more than regular city buses.

February — City halts construction of New York Apple Tours visitors center 
on W. 54th because part of a building addition illegally sticks out over 
sidewalk.

May 22 — Company bus strikes and kills a 71-year-old pedestrian on W. 45th 
St. Driver cited for not having a proper bus driver's license.

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OWNER TOOK TRIP TO TOP OF CUTTHROAT BUSINESS
Daily News, May 24, 2000
By Robert Ingrassia

Hayim Grant was just 23 when he began helping his father, Harry, run New 
York Apple Tours, a two-bus operation that toted tourists to Manhattan 
landmarks in red double-deckers.

That was 1992, and the savvy young entrepreneur has thrived in New York's 
cutthroat tour bus industry, building a company that owns about 65 buses, 
employs more than 70 drivers and sells some $10 million in tickets annually.

But Grant, now 31 and president of New York Apple Tours, has seen his share 
of trouble, too.

Residents in several Manhattan neighborhoods have complained for years 
about traffic and pollution problems they attribute to the company's buses, 
most of which are imported from Britain.

City officials have hounded New York Apple Tours over safety inspections, 
traffic violations and an illegal bus garage.

And federal regulators fined the company $800,000 last year for falsifying 
bus records to skirt pollution regulations.

On Monday, a New York Apple Tours bus struck and killed a 71-year-old actor 
on W. 45th St., prompting new calls to shut down the business.

In an interview yesterday, Grant acknowledged that his company isn't 
perfect. But he insisted he has well-trained drivers and that his buses 
pass safety inspections.

"We've grown as best we could and tried to our best to build the business 
to improve sightseeing in New York," Grant said from the company's offices 
in a high-rise at Sixth Ave. and 40th St.

Not all news about New York Apple Tours has been bad. In May 1998, Brooklyn 
civic leaders praised the company for starting a tour of landmarks across 
the East River.