NEW YORK—Small businesses outside of Manhattan are being inspected more and fined more, according to a report released by Public Advocate Bill de Blasio on Thursday.
Restaurants and retails stores are inspected by the Department of Health and the Department of Consumer Affairs, respectively. Over the past two years, inspections have more than doubled, increasing most in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx, according to the report.
Inspections by the Department of Consumer Affairs rose from 10,964 inspections in Fiscal Year 2010 to 24,176 inspections in Fiscal Year 2012, while revenue from fines stemming from inspections doubled, from $7 million to $14 million over the same period.
Manhattan has more retail businesses than any other borough, but they are inspected 18 percent less than average, while all other boroughs are inspected more than average. The highest inspection rate is in the Bronx, where retail stores are inspected seven percent more than average.
“This is a radical range here—22 percent range between [businesses in] Manhattan and the Bronx—and it shows a clear pattern of targeting the outer boroughs and going to them to take revenue out of small businesses that could not afford it,” said de Blasio on the steps of City Hall on Thursday. He called the increase in fines “a hidden tax.”
The problem is not the inspections but the discrepancy in how they are conducted, said de Blasio. Besides being carried out more often in the outer boroughs, the inspections are known to vary considerably depending on the inspector.
