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Chapter 1-A: Fulton Fish Market Distribution Area and Other Seafood Distribution Areas
Editor's note: For related unconsolidated provisions, see Appendix A at L.L. 1995/050.
§ 22-201 Legislative findings.
The council hereby finds that the fulton fish market, the center of New York's wholesale seafood industry located in lower Manhattan, has for decades been corruptly influenced by organized crime; that organized crime's corrupting influence over certain functions in the market, including the unloading and loading functions, has resulted in the commission of numerous crimes and wrongful acts there, including but not limited to physical violence or threats of violence, property damage, and thefts; that organized crime's corrupting influence over the market has fostered and sustained a cartel that has forced seafood suppliers and truckers to use particular unloading crews at fixed prices in an anticompetitive scheme that has been censured by a federal judge; that organized crime's corrupting influence has resulted in retailers parking on city streets and city property nevertheless having to pay high fees to private loading crews whose principal function has been to provide "security" for those vehicles and their contents while retailers have purchased fish in the crime-ridden market area; and that these corrupting influences have further resulted in higher prices for wholesale seafood than would otherwise have to be paid in the absence of this activity. The council further finds that despite the repeated efforts of law enforcement to prosecute crimes there and the presence of a court-appointed administrator for the market, the problem of organized crime corruption in the market has persisted. The council further finds that the market's businesses, including wholesalers, seafood deliverers, unloaders and loaders, have not been effectively regulated by the city in the past under existing laws and regulations governing public markets, even though they often operate on city property, albeit without leases, licenses and registration. The council further finds that, in the absence of an effective regulatory scheme, wholesalers have established a "gray market" in tenancies at rates in excess of those being paid to the city and have thus deprived the public of its rightful return on city property, and further, that unscrupulous businesses have taken advantage of this absence of regulation to engage in fraudulent practices, such as the creation of "phantom wholesalers" whose businesses disappear from the market before payment can be obtained from them for seafood they have received from suppliers, and that such practices have discouraged suppliers from utilizing the market area The council therefore finds and declares that in order to provide for the more efficient and orderly conduct of business in the market area, to ensure that any such activities are lawfully conducted, to promote the economic vitality of the market and to protect the public interest, it is necessary for the commissioner of small business services to have expanded authority to license and/or register businesses in the market area and to regulate the conduct of such businesses. In particular, the council finds that, in order to achieve these objectives, the commissioner of small business services should be authorized to issue requests for licensing proposals to provide unloading and loading services in the market area and, at his or her discretion, issue one or more unloading and loading licenses based on the review and evaluation of responses received pursuant to such requests. In the event that no appropriate responses are received to such requests, the commissioner should be authorized to arrange for the department of small business services itself to perform unloading or loading services or to arrange that they be performed by a contractor or a designee of the department. The council recognizes that complaints have been made about the conduct of seafood distribution activities outside the market area and finds further that the conditions which have given rise to corruption in the market area can exist in other areas where there are wholesale seafood businesses or concentrations of such businesses. The council also recognizes that representatives of such businesses have threatened to move their operations elsewhere and that some may relocate to other parts of the city. The council thus finds and declares that it is also necessary for the commissioner of small business services to have authority to regulate seafood distribution in areas of the city outside the market area in which such seafood businesses may concentrate. Application of this chapter will enhance the city's ability to address organized crime corruption and to protect consumers and the many honest business persons who do business in or with the market or at other seafood distribution areas. It is thus the council's intent to empower the city to have greater regulatory authority over the conduct business in the market and in other seafood distribution areas.
Editor's note: For related unconsolidated provisions, see Appendix A at L.L. 1995/050.
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