NYC NOW - July 31, 2023: Midday News

Episode Date: July 31, 2023

New Jersey's Lieutenant Governor Sheila Oliver, standing in for vacationing Governor Phil Murphy, is hospitalized, causing a temporary void in her roles. Also, Housing Works' legal cannabis dispensary reports a surprising $12 million revenue in its first six months. And, Mayor Adams' war on rats continues and starting tomorrow, city food businesses must dispose of trash in hard containers with tight lids. Finally, a shortage of lifeguards and functioning public pools leads to long lines and crowded lanes for New Yorkers seeking to cool down, a topic discussed by Katie Honan from The City with WNYC’s Michael Hill.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Monday, July 31st. Here's the midday news from Lance Lucky. New Jersey lieutenant governor Sheila Oliver has been hospitalized and can't currently carry out her duties of acting governor, according to a spokesperson for the administration. Oliver had been filling in for Governor Phil Murphy, who's on vacation overseas. He's scheduled to come back August 13th. State Senate President Nick Scuton. is now serving as acting governor of New Jersey. There's no word yet on why Lieutenant Governor

Oliver is hospitalized. Governor Murphy hasn't announced any plans to cut his vacation short, though, and said he's wishing his partner in government, a speedy recovery. Skutari also briefly served as acting governor twice last year when both Murphy and Oliver were out of town. Housing Works says its legal cannabis dispensary made $12 million in its first six months. That's double what the nonprofit was expecting, according to President Matthew Bernardo. He attributes the shop success to its ability to set itself apart. I think being the first, basically getting people to understand our mission, so, you know, where the money goes, which is a little different than the rest of the cannabis options. Housing Works is planning to use its revenue to support its programming, including housing and job training

for people coming out of prison. The shop has generated $1.8 million in sales tax revenue for the state. Part of Mayor Adams' war on rats, fewer garbage bags are expected on city sidewalks. Starting tomorrow, all food-related businesses in the city must use hard containers with tight-fitting lids when they put their trash out for collection. That includes restaurants, food, wholesalers, grocery stores, and bodegas, but will not apply to places that use their own loading docks for trash pickup. It's 80 degrees right now. We'll be near 84 this afternoon and lots of sunshine and low humidity. WNYC. For WNYC, I'm Michael Hill.

Many New Yorkers are looking for ways to stay cool, but cooling off in one of New York City's free public swimming areas has become increasingly difficult. A lifeguard shortage combined with a lack of functioning public pools have decreased the availability of a place to swim and made for long lines and crowded lanes. Here with us now to talk about the situation. Katie Honan, she's a senior reporter for the city news site. Katie, there was a time in the 50s and 60s when the city had many pools and even pools on wheels. They'd roll around to underserved areas, but that was mostly phased out, and today there's a scarcity of that.

An editorial in the New York Times yesterday mentioned in the Bronx. There's only about one pool for every 175,000 residents. The city council says the Parks Department maintains around 91 public pools across the city. why are there so few pools relative to the population? You know, that's an excellent question. And I was spend a few hours this morning trying to figure out exactly why. And I don't know. You know, I mean, I look at a place like Queens, the second most populous borough and physically the largest.

It has seven outdoor pools. And one of them, Astoria Park Pool, is closed this summer for renovations. So I don't know why, you know, I guess you can point to the fact that the park department has less than 1% of the city's annual budget. the costs to build new pools. You know, the mayor allocated $55 million to renovate and build a pool at Roy Wilkins' Recreation Center. That's a lot of money. So I don't know. I know looking back at the 1930s, 1936 was a big year for New York City, 11 outdoor pools open, some of the other pools that had previously been bathhouses in the city. They were taken over by the Parks Department. But I don't know why there are so few. I mean, maybe because we do have 14 miles of beaches. That might be why a place at Queens with 11 miles of protected beaches. protected as far as where lifeguards patrol. Maybe that's why they didn't build more pools in a borough like that. But it is not a lot of pools. The City's Parks Department, Katie, said it'll extend pool hours until 8 o'clock in the evening during this heat wave. But it didn't do the same for

beaches you were talking about now. What does that mean for New Yorkers with little to know free pool access? I think it's difficult for people. You know, I view it and people I spoke with view it as It's a harm reduction tactic. You know, people are still going to go to the beaches in the evening. They're going to go after 6 p.m., which is when lifeguards go off duty. So even extending beaches an extra hour for the protection, the parks departments that look, you know, they have 800 lifeguards, which is fewer than the 14 to 1,500 that they ideally would like to have. Beaches, of course, obviously, are a less controlled environment at a pool. You're dealing with other things.

You're looking at rip currents. You're looking at marine life. there's a lot of work for a beach lifeguard to do, and obviously being in the sun for that for even an additional hour could be very difficult. But the lifeguard shortage obviously plays some role in this because if you had more lifeguard, you could perhaps split shifts or patrol differently. You know, you mentioned in your reporting that 16 city council districts don't have any public pools within a 15 minute walk from them. What's that breakdown, borough to borough? It's so the borough with the most pools is Manhattan outdoor pools. The Bronx has nine, Brooklyn has 14, Queens has seven, Staten Island has seven, and Manhattan has 16. And this includes, you know, some mini pools, indoor pools as well that these places have. So it's not a lot of pools. And also a lot of the pools have issues. They're old, you know, looking to the 11 outdoor pools built in the 1930s under the WPA. Like, that was a long time ago. So obviously, so these pools need maintenance, even the pool in the Flushing Aquatic Center,

indoor pool, it reopened after a long time, but is also set to close again for further renovation. So you're constantly in this, you're in this constant state of renovation and maintenance to meet, to meet that demand. I want to go back to the lifeguard situation you were talking about. It continues to spark safety concerns and has led to swim classes in summer camps, shutting down their swim. What is the city doing about all this?

they're trying to you know this past winter uh if you're looking at it through two seasons summer and winter um the winter they were working on recruitment um they made the qualifying exam a little bit easier if you were trying to be lifeguard and you didn't make the qualifying exam time they gave you more training they're really trying to increase um the number of lifeguards there but has been wildly reported by myself and others been investigated by the city itself by the department investigation there are really serious issues with the quote unquote lifeguard school which is mainly controlled by the city's lifeguard, the two unions that control the lifeguards, the lifeguards and the lifeguard supervisors under DC37. You know, I speak to lifeguards all the time who, if they've spoken out about things that they don't like in the union, they've been retaliated against, they can't get CPR training. You have a lot of people working at lifeguard school that, you know, if there's a shortage of chiefs, which I reported last week, why not put the people from the lifeguard schools down at the beach?

This is a large issue that's been going on since the 1980s. and it's been very difficult for the city to, as many changes that they make, they're still sort of blocked by these challenges within the people that control this. Katie Honan is a scene reporter for the news site, the city. Thanks, Katie. Thank you. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day, for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives. And subscribe wherever you can.

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