NYC NOW - May 10, 2023: Midday News

Episode Date: May 10, 2023

In Newburgh City in Orange County, law enforcement waits to turn back a bus full of migrants at Crossroads Hotel. WNYC's Jon Campbell speaks live with WNYC’s Michael Hill from the hotel. We’ll be following the story throughout the day. Also, bodegas are a staple in New York City. They’re more than just convenience stores, they’re community hubs. WNYC is partnering with several organizations to learn more about what’s top of mind for bodega owners and customers. Editors Nsikan Akpan of the health and science desk and Josefa Velasquez of the Economics and Equity desk discuss the reporting with Michael Hill.

Welcome to NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Wednesday, May 10th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. On WNYC, law enforcers in Newburgh in Orange County are standing by at the Crossroads Hotel in anticipation of migrants who've been living in the city being sent there by Mayor Adams. WNYC's John Campbell is live on the scene. John, what are you seeing there?

Hi, I'm outside the Crossroads Hotel in Newburgh right off of I-84, literally on the side of the road. There's a handful of media here. There's a handful of security guards outside of the hotel. And there's police officers in the back of the hotel, both from the town of Newburgh and from the Orange County Sheriff's Office, waiting for a bus of migrants that the New York City mayor's office has said should be coming today. That's the latest we've heard. the police officers that there are to enforce a state of emergency that the local county executive Steve Newhouse issued saying that these people can't stay at this hotel. So we're awaiting a showdown

of sorts if this bus does come today as the mayor's office signaled it would last night. John, quickly we understand that a judge in Rockland County issued a temporary restraining order there to prevent a hotel from accepting migrants at this time. Would you tell us about that quickly, please? Yep, and that's effective in Rockland County. So there was a plan to send migrants there as well. That's not happening at this point, but it does not affect Orange County. The Orange County officials and Town of Newburgh officials are weighing whether to file a lawsuit to seek a similar temporary restraining order.

WNIC is John Campbell live on the scene. WN.C will continue to follow this story throughout the day. Thank you, John. 67 and Sunny out there right now. Sunny and 73 for high today. this is WNYC. Bodegas are ubiquitous to New York City. They're where you go to pick up toilet paper,

a missing ingredient to a recipe or grab a quick, reliable sandwich, but they're more than just stores. They're community hubs. WNYC is partnering with several organizations to learn more about what's top of mind for bodega owners and customers. Here to talk with us this morning

are two WNYC editors, Sikon Akpan of the Health and Science Desk and Hosef of Alaska's of the Economics and Equity Desk. See, Khan, let's start with you. Would you explain what this project is and what you hope to learn? Yeah, you know, the inspiration really came from the pandemic. Bodega owners are among the essential and trusted workers who we called upon to keep going during the darkest stages of COVID-19.

And bodegas are also trusted hubs where people can connect with their communities. So we recruited Noology, which is a research group based in the city. and we partnered with the bodega and small business group to see if we could build a community survey that anchored at bodegas. We got some funding last year from the Rita Allen Foundation to do a pilot phase this spring, and then we sort of just went from there. The first round of the survey involved interviews with seven stores, their owners and employees, and about 70 customers. Well, for the last several months, we've heard a lot about inflation and the rising cost of goods. What's the survey telling us so far about how that's impacting bodega owners? and their customers.

So like you said, we've been hearing about inflation in the news for months and months and months and months. And it's kind of hard to wrap your head around what that actually means. With the survey, we're seeing it play out in real life. And what better a way to track it than a bacon egg and cheese, a sandwich that's as New York as the Statue of Liberty. And what we found is that the cost of a bacon and cheese has almost doubled in part because food prices are on the rise.

And that means that, well, they getos, the folks who run these. These bodegas have to constantly change their prices to reflect the fluctuating costs of their goods. And what we're finding through this survey is that a lot of folks go to these stores to buy essentials, right? Eggs and milk. And the prices of that are going up significantly. And it's really interesting to see how inflation, this thing we've been reading about for months and months, is translating into the pockets of everyday New Yorkers. A real impact there you're seeing.

Crime and safety have been on the forefront of a lot of people's minds. We've seen some pretty high-profile cases involving store owners trying to protect themselves against violence and defend their stores from theft. Sikon, what toll is that taking on store owners and customers? Yes, so in December, we met with a group of bodega owners in Inwood, you know, just to hear from them, hear their concerns. And the mental toll of crime came up repeatedly. So not just individual crimes like shootings, but how they're chronically feeling. first hand, a rise in crime. So about half of the shop owners and most customers said crime had gone up recently.

The biggest concern was persistent shoplifting, mainly because that takes up a lot of the bodega owners' mental energy and their time. And most of the bodega owners said when they called the police for help, the police often took a long time to arrive or did they just never show up. The one exception was an owner who had a personal relationship with an officer. All around the city, you're seeing stores starting to sell marijuana. most of them are unlicensed, though. Mayor Adams and Governor Hoke were making it a priority to crack down on stores selling marijuana without a license from the state. Hosepha, are bodega owners in the Bronx thinking of getting into the marijuana business?

So none of the six Bledegos that we talked to for this survey said that they were interested in getting a license. And their reasons really varied. Some had, you know, personal dislike and others said that they were concerned about people's behavior when they were under the influence. And as SICON mentioned, we had this December meeting with some bodega owners, and a lot of them were really seeing marijuana as a gateway drug. And the fact that it is so prohibitively expensive and a lot of hoops that you have to jump through to even get a license didn't seem worth it to them. And, you know, we're talking about a community here that we surveyed that's largely black and Latino neighborhoods in West and South Bronx, people who are likely to be. on the receiving end of over-policing for some of these issues. So it's really interesting to see their attitudes and their vision of what marijuana can do and how desperate that is from the sort of public overall saying that marijuana is no different than, you know, alcohol per se.

I'm curious, what surprised you most about the responses to this survey? Hosef, I go first, please. So for me, it was really this rise in interest in gun ownership. That, I think, was something that I went into this meeting, never expecting. And it does go back to what CECON said about this feeling of being unsafe or that crime is on the rise. And folks are now getting interested in looking at what it takes to get a gun permit to secure themselves and secure their stores. And for me, I think that was a shocking bit of information, but also really reflective of, their feelings and how unsafe they feel in their day-to-day lives, which, as Sikon said, goes back to like the mental toll of this moment right now.

Sikon, what surprised you the most about the responses to the survey? Yeah, I mean, to be honest, like all of it, truly, it's been a really unique window into engaging with the bodega community. We really tried to design the survey and the questions sort of based off of their input and some early conversations with the owners. And I'm really intrigued to see how things evolve as we continue to pilot the survey this spring. CECON, can folks read more at Gothamus.com? Yeah, you know, this week we've published a summary of the survey findings,

both in English and in Spanish. And we're coming up with some other creative ways to get the information back into the communities. Ccon ACPAN is WNYC's Health and Science Editor and Hosef of Alaska's runs our economics and equity desk. Thank you both for joining us. this morning. Thank you, Michael. Thanks, Michael. 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 get your podcasts. More this evening.