The warm weather months typically brings a season increase in pirate radio activity, but the latest warnings sent to several property owners by the Federal Communications Commission shows the problem isn\u2019t limited to one season.<\/p>\n
Field agents have already been to a New York City property twice this year, once in January and again last month, where it traced an unlicensed station at 91.9 FM originating from. The building in the Queens neighborhood of Jamicia is owned by Thomas Chavannes and Beverley Dixon-Chavannes, who the FCC says in a warning letter<\/a> to the couple that they could face stiff fines for allowing a pirate to use their Farmers Boulevard property.<\/p>\n Field agents were likely well acquainted with the neighborhood. The FCC has released another warning<\/a> it has sent to the owner of another property in Jamaca. It says the Linden Boulevard building owned by David Duchatellier was being used by pirates last November when agents were investigating an unlicensed station on 90.1 FM.<\/p>\n The FCC\u2019s New York office has through the years typically spent most of its time investigating pirate complaints in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. But the latest disclosures show it is also an issue in Manhattan. In September, agents tracked an unlicensed station at 89.3 FM to a building on West 189th St. in the Washington Heights neighborhood. The real estate holding company that owns the building, RH 608-614 West 189th Street LLC<\/a>, has also been issued a warning that it too could face financial penalties if the station continues to broadcast.<\/p>\n \u201cThe FCC may issue a fine of up to $2,453,218 if… we determine that you have continued to permit any individual or entity to engage in pirate radio broadcasting from the property that you own or manage,\u201d the Enforcement Bureau letter to each of the property owners says. The FCC is giving each 10 business days to respond and to provide evidence that they are no longer permitting pirate radio broadcasting to occur at their property. It is also asking the owners to identity the people running the unlicensed stations.<\/p>\n Under federal law, the FCC may fine someone who continues to permit any individual or entity to engage in pirate radio broadcasting from any property they own or manage. This year, the inflation-adjusted maximum penalties for pirate broadcasting have increased to $122,661 per day, with a maximum of $2,453,218.<\/p>\n In addition to tougher fines on violators, the PIRATE Act<\/a> requires the FCC to conduct periodic enforcement sweeps and grants the Commission authority to take enforcement action against landlords and property owners that \u201cwillfully and knowingly\u201d permit pirate radio broadcasting on their properties.<\/p>\n In its annual report to Congress<\/a> on pirate radio, the FCC also said it issued 28 notices to property owners and managers last year, including 17 connected directly to pirate radio sweeps. But that was down from 41 notices issued to property owners and managers during fiscal 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The warm weather months typically brings a season increase in pirate radio activity, but the latest warnings sent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[11301,9,24,55,54,12,56],"class_list":{"0":"post-195210","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-free","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-city-news","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-ny"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195210","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=195210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}