Nuking NYC’s hotels & tourism for power and political profit
City Councilwoman Julie Menin is close to lining up a veto-proof majority for a bill to cripple Gotham’s hotel industry, and so slam tourism as New York still struggles to recover from the pandemic.
Her obvious motive: lining up the support of the powerful hotel unions for her coming bid to become council speaker.
Never mind that the “Safe Hotel Act” would drive up room rates and displace nonunion workers, mostly minority immigrant women.
It would require hotels to obtain operating licenses every year, ban them from contracting out critical services and require them to directly employ only unionized workers.