NYC NOW - April 21, 2023: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: April 21, 2023

The parking garage collapse in Lower Manhattan this week is bringing renewed scrutiny on how New York City conducts inspections. The city recently adopted a law requiring inspections at all of its parking garages. But the deadline came too late for the victims of Tuesday's deadly collapse. And finally, the Bamboozle Music Festival returns to New Jersey in a few weeks, after a decade-long hiatus. But ticket buyers say the event’s promoter isn’t delivering on his promises of a return to the good old days.

Good evening and welcome to NYC now. I'm Jene Pierre for WNYC. The collapse of a lower Manhattan parking garage this week is bringing renewed scrutiny to how New York City conducts inspections. The city recently adopted a law requiring inspections at all of its parking garages. But WNYC reporter David Brand says the deadline came too late for victims of Tuesday's deadly collapse. Very few garage owners have actually begun the process. process. We looked at records for about 50 garages and found that none had submitted inspection

reports. That includes the garage at Ann Street that collapsed. There was no inspection report on file with the city. The bill, known as Local Law 126, was passed in 2021 and will be phased in by borough. Garages in Manhattan, south of Central Park, have until the end of this year to comply. All garages in the city will need to complete a certified inspection by 2027. Stick around. We'll head to New Jersey after the break. The Bamboozle Music Festival returns to the Garden State in the few weeks after a decade-long hiatus. Headliners for the three-day festival include Limp Biscuit, Papa Roach, and Joey Badass, just to name a few. But in the months leading up to New Jersey's beloved music festival, ticket buyers say the events promoter isn't delivering on his promises of a return to the good old days.

Karen Price-Muller is a consumer columnist for NJ.com and The Star Ledger. She talked with my colleague Michael Hill about the troubles surrounding the festival. What exactly is bamboozle? And how was this year's festival supposed to stack up against what it once was? So the old bamboozle festival, which ran for 10 years, starting in the early 2000s, the last one was in 2012. It would draw tens of thousands of bands, and it would book a wide variety of different kinds of performers. They had some really big headliners, including Bon Jovi, in the old days. And people today are upset in part because the lineups aren't the same. Now, it wasn't just a Bon Jovi

only type of festival. They would also have hip-hop artists like Drake and 50 Cent, you'd have the big names. And then the emo punk type of music. Now, I'm not a music critic, so I'm going with what others have confirmed for me. acts like fallout boy and My Chemical Romance. And the complainers today are saying that what the festival promoter had promised in coming back for what would be something of a 20-year anniversary, that it would be a very similar kind of lineup. And today they say that's not what's being offered. So did people buy tickets to this upcoming festival not knowing who the artists were going to be? And that's actually very typical for festivals.

People will buy early bird-type tickets on the promise that it would be a certain type of music and will have X number of headliners, but there might not be very many names of performers out at the time that these early bird-type tickets are sold. But when this festival was marketed, it was basically saying, we're going to go back to what bamboozle used to be. And so people purchase the early tickets, and it's a three-day festival so you could buy single-day tickets. or you could buy a three-day pass. And the three-day passes, once you added in all the fees, was $361.11 each. And they went for sale on Good Friday in 2022. So as time went on, ticket prices were supposed to go up as new acts were announced. So getting in early was supposed to get you the cheapest price.

And that was something that was advertised over and over again, that were created and posted by both the promoter and the festival itself on. on social media. Now there's actually a $100 discount code. So not only did the prices not go up in the schedule that was initially announced, people who buy today could get the tickets for $100 less. And that's what people are complaining about. Karen, New Jersey tends to have pretty strong consumer laws. Do those apply in a case like this? I mean, are there a lot of people who've come forward and say they want money back or something done? Well, I know that I've spoken to dozens.

but the Consumer Affairs Division of the Attorney General's Office, as a few days ago, had 18 complaints, although I've spoken to others who said that they planned to complain. Is the State Attorney General's Office planning to do anything with these complaints? Well, the Attorney General's Office will never let us know ahead of time whether or not there is an investigation. I would imagine that they're taking a look. The more people who complain, the more likely they might take some sort of inaction.

But it really depends on the same. specifics of the case, and generally, not about this case, but I know that when more people complain, they'll pay more attention, but they will often just try to come to some sort of a settlement rather than a court action. From a consumer protection standpoint, do the expert you spoke to believe their concerns hold any water? Well, it's interesting. When it comes to promises for lineups, not necessarily, but when it comes to their complaints about ticket pricing, it's a completely different story. And the attorneys that I spoke to said that there could be something there under the Consumer Fraud Act. What has festival founder John D. Esposito's response been to these complaints from

ticket buyers? He said that there is a no refund policy, which is something that's posted in the terms and conditions. But he said that for people who complained to their credit card companies and disputed the charge, that he didn't challenge the disputes. So he said 37 people got their money back that way. But I also spoke to dozens of others who said, because they purchased the tickets on Black Friday, their credit or debit cards told them it was too late to file a dispute because too much time had passed. And those people believe that he should be giving them refunds. Are there any concerns about the show actually going on after everything that's happened? Well, I spoke to the folks in Atlantic City where the show is supposed to take place. And it turns out that the festival does not yet have its final permits for the weekend.

They do have the preliminary permits, but the city had been waiting for additional documents that it needed. And the city says that they're pretty sure that the show is going to go on, but they still don't have the final permitting yet. That's Karin Price-Muller, Consumer columnist for NJ.com and The Star Ledger talking with my colleague, Michael Hill. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. Quick shout out to our production team. It includes Sean Boutage, Ave Carrillo, Audrey Cooper, Jerry Cooper, Jared Marcel and Wayne Schalmeister, with help from the entire WNYC Newsroom.

Our logo was designed by the people at Buck, and our music was composed by Alexis Quadrado. I'm Jene Pierre. We'll be back on Monday.