Transcript: Mayor Mamdani Administration Acts to Protect Restaurant Owners From Delivery App Junk Fees
Zohran Mamdani on NYC Mayor's Office transcripts.
Passages
Hello, everyone. It is such a pleasure to be here. I was just sharing that I recently watched Zootopia 2, so this is really coming to life for me. I am happy to be here with my friends, as well as the red pandas here at the Prospect Park Zoo, to announce a major win for immigrant-owned restaurants and small businesses across New York City. And I'm proud to be joined here to my left by leaders in our city administration, Deputy Mayor Julie Su [and] our Commissioner Sam Levine, and then to my right, elected officials who have been partners in this fight. We have Assembly Member Bobby Carroll, we have our Council Member and Chair of the relevant committee, Harvey Epstein, and we have our Council Member Shahana Hanif, who is also here joining us. And we — all of us together — are thankful for the incredible work of the Prospect Park Zoo staff, to John Calvelli, who I just shared my commiserations with about the Italian national team; to Craig Piper, the interim VP of Zoos and Aquariums; [and] to Denise McClean for welcoming us here to Prospect Park Zoo. It's truly a pleasure, and I'm trying to find any which way that we can return for any of our future announcements. I just saw needles over there, a porcupine, in case others didn't get the chance to. So, the red pandas behind me, eat 30 percent of their body weight in bamboo every day. They are very hungry pandas. Unlike the HungryPanda app, they, however, are not interested in bamboozling hard-working New Yorkers. For so many restaurants and businesses, it is already hard enough to balance daily costs, labor, rent, equipment [and] utilities. Even harder, frankly, to stay afloat when a delivery platform steals hard-earned revenue, fraud disguised as promotions or deductions. And that is exactly what HungryPanda, the app, has done. Now, we are here today to announce that DCWP has won close to a million dollars in restitution and penalties for more than 380 restaurants. Many of these are immigrant-owned restaurants in neighborhoods like Sunset Park and Flushing, and this is the first-ever action to hold a delivery app accountable for violating the rights of New York City restaurant owners. This settlement also obligates HungryPanda to provide fee disclosures, to implement [a] compliance policy and to submit annual compliance certification. Now, for those who have been following us over the course of our 100 days, [you] will know that this is the second major win that we've announced against HungryPanda in three months. Again, not this hungry panda, but Hungry Panda, the app. Alongside Uber Eats and Fantuan, HungryPanda was ordered to pay more than $5 million to almost 50,000 delivery workers for pay rate violations. Now, City Hall, as well as our partners in elected government at both the city and the state level, has no tolerance for the exploitation of workers or small businesses, or frankly, of a system rigged at the expense of working people. We are putting abusers of these laws and violators of them on notice. If you break these laws, we will hold you accountable. We will hold you accountable because it is time to have a city where when people play by the rules, they are not being put at a disadvantage because those who are breaking them are allowed to do so with impunity. Now, to the hungry pandas behind me, that commitment is also for you too. You will be held, adorable. Now, with that being said, I want to pass this over to our incredible Deputy Mayor, Julie Su.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the source And now we will close it out with our Assembly Member Bobby Carroll.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the source It is always an opportunity for us to celebrate the hard-working men and women of DCWP, and our commissioner has shown leadership in securing more than $9.3 million in settlements thus far, which averages out to a little less than $100,000 a day for workers and small businesses across the city. Now, the budget process is a process. It goes through a preliminary, an executive, and then an adopted. And we are a few weeks away from the executive. Those conversations are ongoing. What will never be in doubt, however, is the central place that DCWP holds, not just in receiving complaints, but also in being able to act upon those complaints. [Crosstalk.]
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the source We nominated her for this position specifically because of our confidence in her integrity, in her independence, and frankly, her track record, where she has served for years holding those accountable who have flouted the law. And we are looking to have that independence and that integrity in the leadership of DOI, and we see her as exactly the right person, and we're looking forward to that process.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the source So, we are a few days away from our first hundred days in office, and at the same time we're on a different calendar. We're less than 70 days away from the start of the World Cup. Now, we know the World Cup is going to be a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the city. What it also demands is that we are prepared for it. And so, we are taking the steps to ensure that we have the requisite public sector capacity to deal with the number of events that will be a part of that World Cup. And so, as part of that, things that would be regularly scheduled for that same time period, we're looking to find alternative dates to ensure that the city cannot just put on an event at this scale, but that it sets an excellent level of quality. And so, I will tell you that for many who come to this city, it will not just be to watch the game. It will be as an opportunity to explore this city. And so, we want this to be one where every single one of the five boroughs is ready for what also will be a multi-billion-dollar economic opportunity for this city.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the source Yes. That's not in question. We're speaking about large-scale events that require permitting, police presence, things of that nature. If you're going to barbecue, you can barbecue.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the source I share in the rejection of a property tax hike. When we put forward our preliminary budget on February 17th, I said then what I'll say now, which is that it is a path of last resort, one that we will spend every single day looking to avoid as we pursue a path of working with Albany to increase taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers, the most profitable corporations, and end the drain that has characterized the city's relationship with the state. And so, I encourage everyone who shares in that opposition to a property tax hike to join us in that advocacy. It will be critical as we move through not just the city budget, but also the state budget, to ensure that we can bridge a $5.4 billion fiscal deficit without having to put it on the backs of working-class and middle-class New Yorkers.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the source I think we all have a role to play. I think that there will be disagreements about proposals that are put forward. I shared my concerns around the proposal put forward by the council, and we will negotiate through it, we will talk through it, and then at the end of this process, we will agree on a budget that will balance it as per the law. And I'm looking forward to that, because what New Yorkers want is to finally see our city back on firm financial footing. What they have instead had to see is a city facing a fiscal crisis the likes of which dwarf even 2008. [Crosstalk.]
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the source So, the things that will never be in question for me are the cutting of essential services to New Yorkers. We will never allow a New Yorker to have to go to sleep wondering whether those kinds of services will be in doubt the next morning. And so, when we put forward our preliminary budget, we said we were confident we could find $1.7 billion in savings. That's 1.5 percent in this fiscal year, 2.5 percent in the next fiscal year — and [these are] savings and efficiencies, not cuts to services. The crux of our concern around the Council's proposal was that it projected an inflated number of savings that we could not see in any of the data in front of us. And if we were going to budget for that scale of multi-billion dollars in savings without the evidence to back it up, it would then force the city to find that same money in cutting services. That's something we never want to do. And that's why we've been talking about the fact that it's critical that we have a structural solution for a structural crisis. What I mean by that, this is a fiscal crisis that was created prior to our administration, prior to our agenda. It will recur unless we find an answer to it that also recurs. That's what we're looking for in these next few weeks.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the source When we first told New Yorkers of the scale of the fiscal crisis we were facing, we made clear to them that it would be a crisis that would continue over weeks and months and one where the figure would change. However, we wanted to tell them that it was at $12 billion at the beginning of it. The reason for that is that is a far higher number than any administration typically inherits. We said at the moment of revealing the $12 billion that we knew that Wall Street profits and bonuses were still to be accounted for. We knew that those would be incorporated into this and also that we would take savings measures. So, the $1.7 billion that I was referring to earlier — that was part of how we reduced that $12 billion to $7 billion. Then the reduction of the 7 to 5.4 was a result of Governor Hochul committing $1.6 billion to the city. So, it went from 12, brought it down to 7, brought it down to 5.4. I am not in any way averse to reducing the deficit. That's what we want to do. The issue at hand, however, is that when a plan is put forward that allocates billions of dollars in savings from a vacancy plan that we do not have any data to support, it is not one that I can in good conscience tell New Yorkers to trust. Especially as we are having a conversation with Albany, with the Governor [and] state legislative leaders, and speaking to them about the importance of putting our city back on a firm financial path, I have to be honest about the fact that these savings don't exist in the manner that could actually do so, and the need continues when it comes to Albany's partnership in putting us back at a balanced budget.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the source I will always leave the grades to New Yorkers themselves. What I will say is that we are coming to the end of 100 days in office, and we have sought to make this period one where we provide New Yorkers with a glimpse as to what these next four years will look like. We've looked to be ambitious [and] unrelenting and move at the same speed as New Yorkers do. And so when I stand here alongside our commissioner, our deputy mayor, we do so acknowledging the $9.3 million we've won in settlements, the more than 6,000 apartments that are currently being repaired as part of the more than $30 million we've won from bad landlords in the city, the $1.2 billion we've won in partnership with the Governor to deliver universal child care in this city, and doing all of this while we also fill in more than 100,000 potholes in the city. And I will end by quoting the poet Pitbull, because after DOT has finished those 100,000 potholes, they are now going to pave more than 1,000 miles of road, which Pitbull would describe accurately as the “distance from New York City to Miami.” Thank you all so much.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the source
Every passage above is taken from this recording: NYC Mayor's Office transcripts, Transcript: Mayor Mamdani Administration Acts to Protect Restaurant Owners From Delivery App Junk Fees.