You may be familiar with Bolt Bus: they’re a discount line that provides direct service between cities in the Northeast and on the West Coast. Some passengers traveling from New York to Boston were fortunate to escape their vehicle before it was engulfed in flames about 15 minutes outside of Boston. [More]
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NYC Lawmakers Want To Pay People For Submitting Videos Of Illegally Idling Vehicles
By 3.10.15
Getting paid to spy for your government isn’t just something for the movies: In New York City, lawmakers are introducing a bill that would reward citizens who report drivers of idling vehicles and submit a video of the act as proof. [More]
Passengers Safely Taken Off Delta Jet That Skidded Off Snowy Runway
By 3.5.15
Two-thirds of the flights scheduled to arrive today at New York’s LaGuardia airport have already been canceled, mostly due to the latest snow storm to slam the Mid-Atlantic region. And there are 130 who probably wish their Delta flight to LGA had called off after it slid off the runway this morning. [More]
Man Arrested For Stealing House Moves Back In After Posting Bail
By 11.5.14
If I get arrested for stealing a car, that boosted vehicle probably isn’t waiting outside the police station for me to drive away in when I make bail. But a man in New York City who was recently arrested for stealing a home from its rightful owner was able to move back into the house he’s been accused of taking. [More]
NYC Mayor Raises Concerns About Comcast/TWC Merger
By 11.4.14
While 52 other mayors from around the country were recently reminded that Comcast is an important contributor to election campaigns, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City has been busy warning the FCC that the pending merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable is fraught with potential problems. [More]
NY Pols Want Free Broadband For Public Housing, WiFi For Parks If Comcast Deal Approved
By 10.31.14
Usually by this point in the review process of a mega-merger like the one pending between Comcast and Time Warner Cable, there are discussions about things the parties are willing to do or give up in order to make the deal more palatable to critics. But because Comcast and TWC proactively offered to spin off some 3 million customers, and because Comcast already made a bunch of promises and concessions when it acquired NBC back in 2010, there hasn’t been much chatter. But some folks in New York are making known their demands for signing off on the deal. [More]
NYC To Publicly Shame Landlords Who Harass Tenants
By 9.24.14
There are few types of people on this planet more worthy of scorn than landlords who make life miserable — whether through threats, ignored repairs, or harassing letters and calls — for the tenants who pay them money every month. Just ask the many renters of New York City apartments whose landlords treat them poorly in the hopes that they will move out and be replaced by new tenants willing to pay higher rents. But the NYC City Council has passed a new bill that not only doubles the penalties for these scumbags, but publishes their names on a city website. [More]
Scammers Made $60K Taking Rental Deposits For Other People’s Apartments
By 9.17.14
There is a longstanding, if sketchy, tradition in New York City of people signing a lease on an apartment with the sole intent of subletting it for a profit. But where that crosses the line from sketchy to just plain evil is when you’re merely using someone else’s home as a showcase to rack up thousands of dollars in ill-gotten deposits from hopeful tenants. [More]
Newsstand Barred From Selling Coffee After Starbucks Moves Into Building
By 7.2.14
If you’re a Starbucks fan, you’d probably be pleased when one of the coffee chain’s stores opens up in your office building. But does the existence of that new java joint mean that no one else in the building should be able to sell hot, caffeinated beverages? [More]
A Man Walks Into McDonald’s With Knife In His Back; There’s No Punchline
By 6.25.14
Imagine you’re just minding your own business, waiting in line for some fast food breakfast at your local McDonald’s when a man walks in. Something seems a bit off about him. Is it the way he walks? Perhaps it’s something about the conversation he’s having on his phone. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s the huge, bloody kitchen knife sticking out of his back. [More]
Starbucks Can’t Fire Pro-Union Worker For Cursing At Manager
By 6.18.14
When is it okay to for a Starbucks employee to use profanity within earshot of customers? You might say never, but a National Labor Relations Board has ruled that the coffee colossus was in the wrong for firing a worker for dropping some R-rated words when involved in pro-union protest. [More]
Comcast One Step Closer To Slapping Its Logo On Top Of 30 Rock
By 6.13.14
Comcast may have its global HQ inside the world’s tallest thumb drive here in Philadelphia — and it’s even building a huge middle finger right next door to reaffirm that Philly is Kabletown USA — but the real real-estate cherry in its portfolio has yet to be adorned with the Comcast logo: 30 Rockefeller Plaza in NYC. [More]
Is It Wrong For A Restaurant To Tell Diners To Remove Google Glass?
By 5.27.14
The culture war (more of a slap-fight) over where and when it’s okay to sport Google Glass continues. A Manhattan restaurant is the latest to get caught up in the fracas after it asked a customer to remove her Glass device while dining, resulting in a burst of negative reviews from those who think the eatery crossed a line… and a backlash from those who aren’t impressed with the headgear and don’t see why anyone would wear one to dinner. [More]
Man Steals Bread Truck, Keeps Making Deliveries (Sort Of)
By 5.22.14
My mom always said to me, “If you’re going to steal an in-use bread delivery truck, it’s only common courtesy to keep making the deliveries.” Of course, it doesn’t help if those deliveries are just to random businesses that didn’t order any of the bread. [More]
Airbnb Agrees To Hand Over Some User Info To NY Attorney General
By 5.21.14
There’s been yet another development in the ongoing battle between Airbnb and the state of New York, with the online home rental service agreeing to turn over some data about its customers to the state’s Attorney General, but not to the extent that a subpoena from the AG’s office had originally sought. [More]
Dirty Hot Dog Vendors Avoid Cleaning Up By Changing Their Names
By 4.28.14
Look, we all know that there is a certain level of self-delusion involved every time we buy a hot dog from a street vendor, but we’d like to believe that any street-meat seller whose lack of cleanliness merits multiple Dept. of Health violations would be put out of business. Which is sort of true, in that the sketchy hot dog dealer merely can merely resurrect his business under a new name with a new license. [More]
Sprint Store Manager Accused Of Mailing $327,000 In Refund Checks To Himself
By 4.16.14
A former manager of a Sprint store in Queens, NY, has been arrested for allegedly helping himself to hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of rebate checks that should have gone to customers. [More]
Are You OK With A Restaurant Googling You If It Improves Customer Service?
By 4.14.14
If you apply for a job, you can rest assured that someone will Google your name or look you up on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and elsewhere before hiring you. If you meet someone via an online dating service, he or she has probably (and wisely) made repeated efforts to look you up on publicly available social media sources in order to make sure you’re not a suspected serial killer. But when you make a reservation at a restaurant, you probably don’t expect anyone there to do any research about you. [More]
