NYC NOW - July 27, 2023 : Evening Roundup

Episode Date: July 27, 2023

A chain of New York City clinics will have to refund patients after improperly charging them for COVID tests during the pandemic. Plus, a probe into illegal donors for Mayor Eric Adams touches a key member of his inner circle. Also, city officials aren’t enforcing a law prohibiting stores from air conditioning the streets. And finally, WNYC’s Amy Pearl tags along with a group of teenagers who are spending the summer tending the ornamental vegetable garden at a historic park in Yonkers.

Good evening and welcome to NYC now. I'm Jenae Pierre for WNYC. A chain of New York City clinics called CareCube will have to refund patients after improperly charging them for COVID tests during the pandemic. The New York Attorney General's office announced the settlement with the company this week. As part of that agreement, CareCube will also have to pay $300,000 in penalties to the state. CareCube operated more than 20 testing sites in Manhattan, Brooklyn, QuirCube, and the Bronx over the course of the pandemic. It now has just five locations.

The company is hiring an auditor to determine which patients should receive refunds. The Attorney General's office says it could take about two months for checks to arrive. You've probably noticed the personal aides whose shadow elected officials. They're often referred to as body people. For them, there are two rules to the job. Be discreet and protect the boss. Now, a former bodyperson for New York City Mayor Eric Adams is drawing attention amid a campaign finance scandal. WNYC's Elizabeth Kim has more.

After working on Adams' mayoral campaign, Rachel Acheson went on to become the mayor's body person. What she knows about the mayor and his donors is now one of the questions raised by a recent court filing. It identified Acheson as an aide who communicated with a man accused of making illegal donations to Adams. Neither Acheson nor Adams have been accused of wrongdoing, but her connection to the alleged donor Dwayne Montgomery marks the closest the investigation led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Brad has come to the mayor. Acheson now works as a food policy director in City Hall. Both the campaign and Adams say they will continue to cooperate with authorities. Stick around. There's more after the break. walked past a store that's just blowing cold air out onto the sidewalk. Might feel nice on a day like today, right? Well, in New York City, it's actually illegal to pump air conditioning onto city streets.

But officials haven't issued a ticket for it in years. WNYC reporter Charles Lane explains. On a monkey Tuesday night in Soho, Sarah Bonavich crues at the idea of passing a store that has its doors open. It's so nice. Oh, I love it. I love when stores leave their doors. open and have the AC going. Because when it's humid, like it has been for the last three weeks, it's really nice to walk by and have, like, a little blast of cool. Turns out there's plenty of stores that air-conditioned the sidewalks, restaurants, bodegas, clothing stores. But, yeah, I think that I understand why they do it. I think that it entices people probably to walk in because it's nice and cool in there, and they know that it's nice and cool in there. But I do wish that, given the state of, you know,

climate change and how the world feels like it's ending right now. We didn't have to do that, but I guess it is what it is. A law passed in 2015 makes this practice illegal and punishable by up to a $1,000 fine for repeat offenders. But according to city data, not a single store has been ticketed since 2019. A spokesperson for the Department of Consumer Affairs and Worker Protection says it investigates 311 complaints, but people haven't been complaining about it. Lawmakers, like city council member Gail Brewer, are perplexed by this response. It's the law.

There are lots of things that people don't complain about. You still have to obey the law. According to 311 data, when the law first went into effect in 2015, 350 people called to complain about it. Every year since, an average of 600 people have complained. Then came the pandemic, and complaints plummeted. In 2022, they dropped by two-thirds. Business owners are in different.

about the lack of enforcement. D. Mike runs the Soho Cannabis Shop called Sullivan Gallery Brought to You by Gods. He says he gets more customers when he leaves the doors open. If we're getting charged for it to be on, then we don't have a problem being charged, then it's not an issue.

I don't feel like a waste, you know what I mean? On top of the costs, there's also the environmental effect. Researchers say about 4% of all global greenhouse emissions come from air conditioning. Jason Woods is a research engineer for the National Renewal energy lab. So there's a lot of laws that are going into effect that say make more insulation,

better windows, you know, all these things that you're doing. But then if you leave your doors open, you're kind of feeding the purpose. In 2019, the city council passed a different law that allowed citizens to collect a reward for reporting idling trucks. However, Brewer isn't ready to do that for ACs. I'd rather just see the law enforced. It's the law. It should be enforced. She says it's on her list to call consumer affairs to ask why they aren't enforcing it. WNYC reporter Charles Lane. Lots of teenagers get summer jobs as camp counselors or scooping ice cream. But one group of teens is spending the summer tending the ornamental vegetable garden at the historic

Unermeyer Park in Yonkers. WNYC's Amy Pearl has the story. On a hillside overlooking the Hudson River sits Untemeyer Park. Samuel Untemeyer cultivated acres of formal gardens there from the 20s to the 40s. Now they're being painstakingly restored, including a new ornamental vegetable garden. That's exciting to see. Where the horticulture interns have made a discovery. What's going on? What's the excitement?

I don't know. We're just seeing that there's some brussels sprouts growing. Gloriana Montavo is 15. I actually never knew how Brussels grew before, but I guess you could almost call them pods that come out of the leaves where the brussels grow. Gloriana and our fellow interns have been working here in the garden four days a week since June. about enough time for a Brussels to sprout, and enough time to change a little. I was really scared of bugs. I couldn't see a bee or anything or I'll start screaming.

Rebecca McKenna, 17. But now I'm not afraid of them. I just see them, and it just doesn't bother me at all anymore. 15-year-old Stephanie Conteros walks me down the winding paths through the neatly laid beds. This is lavender that's dill, the green and purple, those of both vasals. The purple one, I use the purple one.

to make purple pestle. We have the artichokes growing in the middle. Artichokes? Yeah, you could see it. Look at the baby one. Yeah, the little baby. Those are one of my favorite ones. I love when they're small.

I asked Rebecca what her favorite job was. I think my favorite thing that we did so far was probably planting the trees. But it seems like the hardest part. I mean, it is, it was hard, but I think it was because it was a good feeling to, like, drive by and be like, oh, we planted this tree. it's a good feeling. Stephanie agrees. I love planting.

Yeah, it's just feeling connected to everything. And with everything going on crazy, it's just nice to have a peaceful time just planting and weeding. 15-year-old Chloe Cumberbatch's mind is on other things. Well, one thing that goes through my mind is that my arms hurt because it's very, very difficult. If you see a garden, you don't think about the gardeners. You think of more just the sites that you see,

but a lot of work goes into the gardens that are in Yonkers. But as summer jobs go, working at Untemeyer Park gets two thumbs up. I mean, this is a really nice place. Exactly, it's free. Parking's free. The park's free. And to add to that, it's a historical site from like the 1940s. I mean, it can't get any better than that.

That's WNYC's Amy Pearl. Before we go, a quick note, to stay cool during this blast of summer heat in the New York region. And a good way to do that, just post up at a public pool. Governor Kathy Hockel says hours will be extended at several state public pools and swimming facilities through Saturday. The extended swimming hours could be affected by bad weather, staffing, or water conditions. For updates, visit parks.n.gov. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC.

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