From the New York Post:
NYC building inspectors use ‘speed trap’-style stakeouts against contractors
City building inspectors are running speed trap-style operations to catch contractors violating a coronavirus ban on “non-essential” construction work — and to slap homeowners with maximum, $10,000 fines, The Post has learned.
I’m an elevator guy normally but they got us all doing this now,” the inspector told The Post.
“Except for essential work, there are no inspections. So to keep us all working, they got us out making sure everybody complies with the governor’s order.”
For some reason, letting a couple of contractors work on a building during the lockdown will kill grandma, so it’s been banned. Without construction, city inspectors are not inspecting.
So Cuomo and de Blasio turn them into narcs, staking out buildings to bust contractors doing work that the governor decided was “non-essential.”
Meanwhile, an electrician who was hired by a nearby homeowner said he was “followed” to the house by a different inspector on Monday — then drove off when the inspector pulled alongside his van and parked across the street.
The electrician said that he wanted to work, but that getting fined “makes it not worth it.”
Last week, he said, the same inspector who tailed him had pounced on a floor re-finisher, slapping the contractor with a $2,500 fine, plus $1,000 for each of his helpers — along with a maximum, $10,000 fine for the homeowner.
Cuomo can force sick people into nursing homes but a homeowner can’t get a couple of guys who want to work and feed their families to have their floors redone. That will kill grandma.
That inspector told The Post that a violation occurs as soon as a contractor “steps onto the property.”
“The fine for having any work done is $10,000. First offense. No exceptions,” he said.
This has NOTHING to do with COVID. This has everything to do with revenue for the state by fining rich people getting their homes remodeled.
The inspector, who was behind the wheel of a dark Toyota Prius with DOB markings, said he’s also under orders to investigate the activities of any contractors he’s able to spot.
He was just following orders to bankrupt people.
HVAC contractor John Heffernan, who owns Pride Maintenance & Mechanical Inc. of Bayside, said he was working at a house in Sheepshead Bay two weeks ago when a DOB inspector “boxed in my truck” with his car “and ran into the house I was working on.”
“He told the homeowner he was getting a $10,000 fine and I was getting fined $5,000 for each employee,” Heffernan said.
“I had to prove I was fixing the heat before he let us off.”
Fucking Karen – She Wolf of the SS.
The agency also noted that homeowners can apply for permits for non-essential work that’s “being completed by a single worker who is the sole employee/worker on the job site.”
Because flooring can be done by one guy.
This is just fascist. Sending inspectors to gleefully bust people for working and fining them into oblivion is just cruel. But that’s all New York has left in it, cruelty and tyranny.
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