New York City is once again staring into the fiscal abyss, and yet it can’t manage to collect almost $1 million in health-code-violation fines?
Even when the violators set up shop every day at Fifth Avenue and 54th Street?
Sheesh. No wonder the city’s going broke.
The Post reported Monday that not paying food-cart tickets has become business as usual for several Midtown vendors.
Five cart operators alone — set up at 54th and Fifth — have wracked up nearly $1 million in fines over the last year.
So why are the carts still in operation?
It shouldn’t — one would think — take too long for the Department of Finance to collect on the outstanding debts, right?
Alas, not so.
As one vendor put it in depressing honesty: “Nobody ever comes to collect,” said Hussain Ishmayll. “It’s a big joke.”
Indeed it is.
Of 13,775 tickets issued to street vendors over the past year, only 394 were paid.
In a city where a couple of unpaid parking tickets will get careless motorists the hook — as well they should — the notion that street vendors don’t see their carts hauled off when they’ve stacked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid fines is simply preposterous.
The Finance Department says that it works with collection agencies to recover the outstanding fines from street vendors.
But, for some reason, the department won’t say why just taking away a vendor’s license isn’t an option.
Given Mayor Bloomberg’s reputation for insisting on cleanliness in food establishments and well-ordered streets and public walkways, it’s a bewilderment that he’s so lenient with code violators.
Offenders need to pay up, or be shut down. Immediately.