A clash over trash is playing out in Tribeca \u2014 where plenty of small buildings have no choice but to set out their garbage in plastic bags rather than bulky bins.<\/p>\n
In such small buildings, there is simply no space for the sanitation department\u2019s required bins, which consume far more space than bags alone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Regardless, late last year the sanitation department slapped landlord Robert Moskowitz with three \u201creceptacle violation\u201d tickets \u2014 for using garbage bags rather than the requisite \u201crigid receptacles with tight fitting lids.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
Among the buildings is 277 Church St., sandwiched between other buildings with contractors blocking curb access, which the lawsuit claims can\u2019t store garbage according to the city\u2019s rules. William Farrington for The NY Post<\/p>\n
Instead of bins, the building must rely on leaving the bags on the curb, which the suit claims requires less space. William Farrington for The NY Post<\/p>\n
Moskowitz paid $150 for those three counts of \u201cfailure to containerize.\u201d His efforts to fight the tickets failed, and he is now suing the city\u2019s sanitation department, DSNY.<\/p>\n
It is both \u201cphysically and legally impossible to comply\u201d with the bin requirement, wrote his lawyer, Nicole Waknine, in papers filed last week in Manhattan Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have no objection to the use of trash cans,\u201d she told The Post. \u201cOur issue is a practical one. The goal is to push the city to implement a waiver program for building owners who have tried in good faith to comply and truly can\u2019t comply.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
With no yard or storage space, there is simply no place to put the bins, except for a building\u2019s entryway, where people would need to shimmy past. Even if there were space, the fire code prohibits the storage of rubbish in lobbies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nor is there space for another allowed option, a fenced-in storage area within 3 feet of the building, which would block the doors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Blocked access to the curb due to the work of contractors only makes matters worse. William Farrington for The NY Post<\/p>\n
Moskowitz \u2014 whose company, Only Properties, owns about a dozen small downtown buildings \u2014 was issued tickets for three historic Tribeca properties. All are small walkups, with lofty rental residences atop narrow ground-floor commercial spaces, and open directly onto the sidewalk.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Large buildings and massive skyscrapers are in a very different situation, with plenty of space and resources to handle garbage, Moskowitz said in a statement to The Post. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe law places a disproportionate burden on [small buildings], forcing us to purchase only DSNY-approved trash cans and to create storage space out of thin air.\u201d<\/p>\n
The current situation is \u201can example of a \u2018one size fits all\u2019 rule really failing,\u201d Waknine said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
About two years ago, as part of its war on rats<\/a>, the city required buildings to containerize their trash, specifying certain\u00a0requirements<\/a>\u00a0for the bins used.\u00a0<\/p>\n (As of Sept. 8, the sanitation department\u00a0will start fining small buildings, defined as having one to nine residential units,\u00a0that do not use the\u00a0specific official NYC bins<\/a>, which are available at Home Depot.)\u00a0<\/p>\n It also doesn\u2019t help that the lobbies of the three Tribeca buildings are all quite small \u2014 meaning bulky bins limit walking space. Manhattan Supreme Court<\/p>\n Commercial hatches and fire bell signs, seen in this photo from court documents, also can\u2019t be blocked by trash. Manhattan Supreme Court<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not a matter of storing a small waste bin in the residential lobby,\u201d the complaint reads, \u201cbut rather having enough space for storage of the amount of garbage that accumulates within the entire building over a 72-hour period,\u201d which the law requires.\u00a0<\/p>\n The buildings in question have trash picked up three times a week.\u00a0<\/p>\n At 277 Church St., one of the ticketed buildings, the commercial tenant is the French restaurant\u00a0Faux<\/a>, scheduled to open next month by George McNally, son of legendary restaurateur Keith McNally<\/a>. The restaurant will occupy both the ground-floor and basement levels. \u00a0<\/p>\n One obvious problem: The building\u2019s residential lobby is 50 inches wide, and storing two 45-gallon bins would consume no fewer than 45.2 inches. <\/p>\n \u201cResidential tenants cannot safely enter and exit the building with only 5 inches of space,\u201d Waknine wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n Even if the bins were slightly smaller, \u201cregardless of size, we are completely prohibited from storing bins in the lobby,\u201d she told The Post. The buildings also don\u2019t have space for recycling or compost bins, but they have not been ticketed for those failures.\u00a0<\/p>\n Building residents put their own garbage out, with the super organizing it to be sure it is neatly and correctly bagged.<\/p>\n Another small lobby shows little space for city-mandated garbage storage. Manhattan Supreme Court<\/p>\n Moskowitz lost an appeal because \u201cno evidence was presented to indicate whether Respondent made aby [sic] effort to place refuse out for collection in a rigid container\u201d and also \u201cfailed to prove that the containers could not be stored in other areas, including the commercial space,\u201d the hearing officer wrote. \u00a0<\/p>\n Waknine was incredulous. \u201cThe court is making decisions that are not addressing reality,\u201d she told The Post.<\/p>\n \u201cThe notion that a restaurant would want large garbage cans stored on site and would accept the building\u2019s residential tenants going in and out to dispose of their garbage when they are not required to under their lease agreement is preposterous,\u201d Waknine wrote in court papers.\u00a0<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, \u201cis the hearing officer arguing that Respondent should have proven it cannot store these garbage cans within one of the residential apartments? There is no court in New York State that would compel a residential tenant to submit to the public storage of garbage in its home.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n At\u00a031 Walker St., the Mexican restaurant\u00a0A\u00f1ejo TriBeCa<\/a>\u00a0uses a hatch for deliveries, and there is also signage outside for the building\u2019s sprinkler system. Neither can be blocked.\u00a0<\/p>\n At that building, approved trash bins in the lobby would leave residents squeezing past with only 22 inches of clearance. If stored behind the stairwell, the bins would block the freight elevator.\u00a0<\/p>\n Interior storage space is also missing at\u00a092 Reade St., where the ground floor is occupied by\u00a0Heyday Skincare<\/a>. \u201cThere, we were directed to build a fenced-in enclosure,\u201d Waknine told The Post.<\/p>\n But there is no place to do so without obstructing doors or setting the enclosure in the middle of the sidewalk, thereby impeding pedestrian flow in a busy commercial area, where the\u00a0sidewalk width<\/a>\u00a0on the block is just 9.1 feet.\u00a0<\/p>\n Neither commercial entrances nor residential entries can be blocked by rubbish, either. Manhattan Supreme Court<\/p>\n The City Council has recognized the absurdity of the bin requirement, and is considering a\u00a0bill<\/a>\u00a0that would exempt some small buildings that don\u2019t have adequate bin space.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve heard from deli owners, barbers and landlords who have no alley, no yard, no storage space \u2014 but are still getting fined for not having a place to put these bins,\u201d the bill\u2019s sponsor, Councilmember Frank Morano of Staten Island,\u00a0told SI Live<\/a>\u00a0last October. \u201cThat\u2019s not good government; that\u2019s bureaucracy gone wild.\u201d<\/p>\n Sanitation spokesman Joshua Goodman declined to comment on pending litigation, but emphasized that using bins instead of bags \u201cactually works\u201d as far as cleaner streets and fewer rats.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cLooking at enforcement data, these three buildings appear to have been caught not using a bin about 80 times since the rules went into effect,\u201d Goodman wrote in a statement to The Post. \u201cThat\u2019s 80 nights with an all-you-can-eat rat buffet outside the buildings.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Since the start of 2025, DSNY has issued about 170,000 summonses for failure to use a bin, and 30,000 written warnings, he told The Post.<\/p>\n He further insisted that DSNY does have a process for buildings to apply for exemptions.\u00a0One form<\/a>\u00a0is for \u201cextremely rare cases\u201d where using a bin would pose \u201ca public safety risk to pedestrians.\u201d\u00a0Another form<\/a>\u00a0is for property owners who have a disability making the use of a bin impossible.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe do not appear to have a record of these property owners applying for an exemption or reaching out for assistance,\u201d Goodman said, adding that DSNY is \u201cvery proud to be such an accessible and responsive agency.\u201d<\/p>\n Those forms are irrelevant, Waknine said. \u201cOur issue is a practical question of how small building owners can realistically store cans between collection days \u2014 not an argument that putting trash cans out on collection days will pose a threat to public safety.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A clash over trash is playing out in Tribeca \u2014 where plenty of small buildings have no choice…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[8991,7003,2850,9,56,63,65,64,1491,3006,6071],"class_list":["post-334629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-department-of-sanitation","tag-fines","tag-lawsuits","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-real-estate","tag-residential-real-estate","tag-tribeca"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334629","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=334629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}