{"id":102744,"date":"2026-01-16T22:53:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T22:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/102744\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T22:53:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T22:53:13","slug":"nyc-mayor-zohran-mamdani-is-cracking-down-on-food-delivery-apps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/102744\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani Is Cracking Down On Food Delivery Apps"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Just a couple of weeks after taking office following his underdog victory in last year&#8217;s mayoral election, New York City mayor and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/articles\/unassuming-nyc-restaurant-catered-zohran-224534362.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:noted fan of Kabab King Zohran Mamdani;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">noted fan of Kabab King Zohran Mamdani<\/a> is wasting no time. He&#8217;s unveiled a universal childcare policy alongside New York governor Kathy Hochul, smoothed out that annoying bump on the Manhattan\u00a0Bridge bike lane, and now he&#8217;s taking aim at food delivery apps for alleged anti-labor practices.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Mamdani&#8217;s administration has sued Motoclick, a third-party platform that integrates delivery apps such as DoorDash, Uber Eats, and GrubHub. The suit claims that Motoclick\u00a0ran afoul of the city&#8217;s Minimum\u00a0Pay Rate through tactics like deducting refunded orders from their delivery drivers&#8217; paychecks and charging their workers $10 per cancelled order. Mamdani has also warned 60 other delivery apps that they will be sued in turn if they don&#8217;t comply with Delivery Worker Laws, which go into effect on\u00a0January 26, 2025. &#8220;No longer will we tolerate corporate mistreatment of workers across these five boroughs,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/nyc.streetsblog.org\/2026\/01\/16\/mamdani-warns-delivery-apps-to-follow-new-worker-protection-laws-or-else\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:declared\u00a0Mamdani;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">declared\u00a0Mamdani<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Read more: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/lifestyle\/employees-mexican-restaurants-tell-us-124030898.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:Employees At Mexican Restaurants Tell Us The Customer Orders They Hate The Most;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Employees At Mexican Restaurants Tell Us The Customer Orders They Hate The Most<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Delivery apps have long been accused of shady labor practices<img alt=\"An Uber Eats delivery driver on a bike.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"780\" height=\"438\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/a55a390343753db0d66eca158d904151.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>An Uber Eats delivery driver on a bike. &#8211; Winhorse\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Once upon a time, most people&#8217;s only options for delivery were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetakeout.com\/best-delivery-pizza-order-reheating-trick-tastes-better-1850003050\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:pizza (which tastes better when uncut);elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">pizza (which tastes better when uncut)<\/a> or Chinese food \u2014 maybe Indian food, if you lived in a particularly cosmopolitan area. But while the proliferation of apps like Uber\u00a0Eats and Postmates over the past 15 years has given consumers unprecedented access to all sorts of food brought right to their door, the delivery drivers don&#8217;t see nearly as much of a benefit. Much like how Uber and Lyft got a foothold through avoiding taxi union regulations, the couriers for delivery apps are classified as independent contractors, meaning (until very recently in California) that they have no union protections.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Horror stories abound regarding the labor conditions for delivery app drivers. Working for less than minimum wage, drivers are expected to work nearly nonstop, deal with harassment from customers and shoulder the burden of any injuries they might accrue on the job. And if that weren&#8217;t enough, these drivers (often members of vulnerable population groups, like immigrants) frequently end up bilked out of their tips, too: Reports indicate that New York City delivery drivers lost $550 million in tips to their apps. At this point, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetakeout.com\/most-popular-food-to-order-on-uber-eats-1847988958\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:getting Americans to stop ordering cold, soggy fries on\u00a0Uber Eats;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">getting Americans to stop ordering cold, soggy fries on\u00a0Uber Eats<\/a> is a losing battle \u2014 the least we can do is offer protection to the drivers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">For more food and drink goodness, <a href=\"https:\/\/subscribe.thetakeout.com\/newsletter-syndicated?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=thetakeout-NL-feed\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:join The Takeout&#039;s newsletter;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">join The Takeout&#8217;s newsletter<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=thetakeout.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:add us as a preferred search source;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">add us as a preferred search source<\/a>. Get taste tests, food &amp; drink news, deals from your favorite chains, recipes, cooking tips, and more!<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Read the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetakeout.com\/2077845\/nyc-mayor-mamdani-food-delivery-legal-action\/?zsource=yahoo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:original article on The Takeout;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">original article on The Takeout<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just a couple of weeks after taking office following his underdog victory in last year&#8217;s mayoral election, New&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[46084,46980,9,24,2695,56,63,65,64,46085,82],"class_list":["post-102744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-delivery-apps","tag-delivery-drivers","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-mayor","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-uber-eats","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}