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BROOKLYN WEEKLY, JAN. 27, 2019
REFUND, PLEASE: Benz Jewelers owner Freddie Benz demanded the city refund the $6,000 fi ne he
paid for his allegedly illegal sign after Council recently passed legislation that temporarily prevents
such penalties from being issued. File photo by Steve Solomonson
Reclaiming their fi nes
Pol: City must repay biz owners for sign fi nes as
part of moritorium on signage violations
BY JULIANNE MCSHANE
The city must refund the
thousands of dollars it collected
from small business
owners it fi ned for their
stores’ signs , according to
a Bensonhurst state pol,
who blasted offi cials for refusing
to guarantee reimbursements
in a recently
passed bill that prevents
such violations from being
issued.
“If we’re serious about
supporting small businesses,
the city has to stop
doing things that are antismall
business,” said Assemblyman
William Colton.
Forty-six of Council’s 51
members on Jan. 9 voted
to pass Bushwick Councilman
Raphael Espinal’s
signage bill . The legislation
— which still must be
signed by Mayor DeBlasio
— would prevent Department
of Buildings bigwigs
from issuing signage violations
for two years, and
waive outstanding fi nes for
violations dating back to
Dec. 28, 2017.
It would also slash permit
fees by 25 percent for
entrepreneurs who already
paid sign fi nes to the
city, but still need to purchase
a mandatory permit
required to hang any
new signs larger than six
square feet.
The bill’s passage followed
a more than 100-percent
spike in anonymous
311 complaints about the
size and legality of storefronts’
signs last year —
the majority of which tipsters
fi led against Kings
County mom-and-pop
shops, which netted some
1,040 of the total 1,900 complaints,
according to Buildings
Department rep Andrew
Rudansky.
Business owners in Colton’s
district — which includes
Bensonhurst, Bath
Beach, Gravesend, and Mapleton
— were particularly
hard hit, receiving 127 complaints
last year, compared
with only 14 in 2017.
And the city’s Offi ce of
Administrative Trials and
Hearings slapped some of
those entrepreneurs with
fi nancial penalties as high
as $15,000 because of the
complaints — fi nes that
many store owners called
disastrous for their bottom
lines.
The fi nes are issued to
property owners, not business
owners who rent their
commercial space, according
to Rudansky, but many
entrepreneurs claim their
landlords force them to pay
the penalties regardless of
whom they are sent to.
And the city should
have recognized this workaround
in preparing the recently
passed legislation,
especially because many
entrepreneurs claimed
to be unfamiliar with the
codes they were fi ned for
violating in the fi rst place,
according to Colton.
“The city has put small
businesses in a tough situation
based on some unenforced
antiquated regulation
that the business
owners have no knowledge
of,” the pol said.
Espinal intended to include
terms requiring full
or partial fi ne reimbursement
as part of the legislation
he introduced last
March, according to two of
his staffers, who said other
city offi cials put the kibosh
on that idea because the
penalties were based off a
legitimate law.
That law requires sig-
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