{"id":181258,"date":"2026-03-31T20:14:41","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T20:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/181258\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T20:14:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T20:14:41","slug":"hempstead-company-charged-over-queens-sign-collapse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/181258\/","title":{"rendered":"Hempstead company charged over Queens sign collapse"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Hempstead company and its owner have been charged with illegally hanging a storefront sign in Queens that was part of a building collapse that hurt two kids and an adult, the New York City government said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The sign \u2014 a 48-by-4-foot canvas-and-metal sign with LED lighting, costing $14,000 \u2014 collapsed last year along with a fa\u00e7ade wall and awning,\u00a0two weeks after being installed in Bellerose, Queens, at 245-13 Jericho Turnpike, the city’s departments of investigation and buildings said in a news release.<\/p>\n

The company owner, Enrico Barthol, of Hempstead, was not licensed as a sign hanger in the city, as is required by law, nor did his company, Rico Creative Art LLC Signs and Murals, obtain the required permits or submit the plans for review to the buildings department, the release said.<\/p>\n

The man and his business face fines of over $87,000 if found guilty in the civil proceeding.<\/p>\n

“We use permits and approvals as a critical bulwark, protecting communities from unlicensed work and the real danger unchecked construction and structural maintenance can pose,” Buildings Commissioner Ahmed Tigani said in the release. “As evidenced by this major collapse, the danger posed by poorly designed and poorly executed construction is not theoretical. It is immediate, tangible, and capable of creating life-threatening hazards for New Yorkers.”<\/p>\n

A man who identified himself as Barthol said he did not know about the case and didn’t respond to a follow-up text containing a copy of the release.<\/p>\n

The collapse on July 23, 2025,\u00a0was at a store called Plaza Furniture and injured a pedestrian and two girls who were inside a parked car, according to published reports<\/a> at the time.<\/p>\n

\"Matthew<\/p>\n

\n\tMatthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Hempstead company and its owner have been charged with illegally hanging a storefront sign in Queens that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181259,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[8015,9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":{"0":"post-181258","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-nassau","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-nyc","12":"tag-queens","13":"tag-queens-headlines","14":"tag-queens-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181258","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=181258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}