QNE_p045

QC05282015

for breaking news visit www.queenscourier.com MAY 28, 2015 • The queens CourieR 45 oped  This 1958 photo shows the demise of one of Queens’ most popular restaurants at its time, The Boulevard, formerly located at 94-05 Queens Blvd. At its peak, the restaurant and tavern accommodated up to 800 people at a time and featured a wide variety of musical acts. A four-alarm fire in March 1958 ravaged the building, which was later demolished. An office tower now stands in its place. letters Fed up with trashy tickets In the middle of the night, the Sanitation Department is giving tickets out to businesses and non-for-profit buildings. This has happened several times. When the businesses and a local nonprofit approached and wrote to Environmental Control Board stating this is unfair, they were told nothing can be done about this. This should be a wake-up call to taxpayers. We pay our taxes and the city doesn’t want to put productive policies in place. Maria Concolino, Woodhaven Hard choices in stopping runaway students The Office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation for New York City Schools, in addition to its primary duty of framing and axing low-level educators, performs some admirable work from time to time. They recently released a report noting this year’s big increase in cases involving students who vanished from their schools during field trips. Some broke free of their chaperones or were allegedly abandoned or lost track of on a bus or discharged to an unauthorized adult at the end of the day. To control the worrisome trend of disappearing students, the SCI made some constructive suggestions, such as the installation of many additional door alarms, a big boost in the proliferation of cameras, and intensified training and staffing of School Safety Agents. The door alarms would alert the staff to an escaping child sooner than his absence would likely otherwise be noted, thereby saving precious time. But it would be a limited safeguard, as Fire Department regulations prohibit doors being locked from the inside. Even if you flooded every school with an army of safety agents, deans and administrators, they couldn’t dependably contain kids bent on absconding. The SCI offered some good ideas, but at best, the number of incidents of “disappearing” students A LOOK BACK will level off, despite all the good-faith remedies implemented by Chancellor Farina. That’s because of a practice that is always well-intentioned but sometimes unrealistic. Large numbers of “special needs” students whose disabilities warrant close and continual supervision (that does not mean oppressive or punitive) have been forced into high-register general education classes. Certainly they should be welcomed as full participants in the student community and neither separated nor stigmatized for their special challenges. But how can this be accomplished while minimizing the flight danger to themselves as they get lost in crowds? Ron Isaac, Fresh Meadows ‘Wacky’ toilet paper tax break should be flushed The rational used by Assemblyman David Weprin to justify his proposal to introduce legislation exempting toilet paper from the 8.875 percent sales tax left me puzzled. Weprin claims that “this a quality-of-life issue” and “the tax also disproportionately affects poor people.” Does Weprin know something the rest of us don’t know concerning how poor people “wipe” versus working class, middle or upper income people? How does Weprin propose the state also make up for the lost revenue? Perhaps Weprin should host a charity drive to raise funds or donations for those poor people who can’t afford toilet paper. Maybe his local district office could accept donations of toilet paper to pass on to those less fortunate. Weprin could also ask Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie for a “member item” to support purchasing toilet paper. Weprin could print his name and official state seal on each “sheet” and distribute them free of charge to all those “poor” constituents. You have to ask if Weprin has too much free time on his hands given all the wacky ideas and comments he comes up with. Larry Penner, Great Neck A Look Back Photo courtesy Ridgewood Times archives NOT ALL NAIL SALONS ARE EQUAL! by LOIS CHRIS TIE It’s been a long time in coming, but finally, the city and state are working to enforce codes for the nail salon industry. As the owner of an award-winning luxury salon in business for 44 years in Bayside, I welcome these changes because many others involved in the industry have exploited cheap labor and bent the rules to make a profit. Our salon employs qualified manicurists (now referred to as nail technicians) to service our clients. New York State requires a license to perform nail and waxing services. Full-service salons had difficulty finding qualified nail technicians and also found itself competing with smaller nail salons that sprang up across Queens offering cheaper prices for all kinds of nail services. These salons employ unskilled and unlicensed workers. The beauty industry faced the difficulty of language barriers in finding employees. We have hired a manager fluent in Korean who has helped us attract and train nail technicians for our business. The nail salon industry today is a billion-dollar business, but questions abound as to who is working at these salons. Who trains them? Are they licensed? Where do the salons hire them? How are they paid? Recent reports have revealed that many of these small nail salons with workers being paid in cash and kept off the books are denied any kind of benefits and forced to work long hours. Our business abides by the rules; we pay our taxes, as do our employees, and give our employees wages well above the minimum as well as paid vacations, training, health care and retirement benefits, and are provided sterilized tools – all of which I believe these workers are entitled to and deserve. I do not believe employees should be forced to work more than a 40-hour week. In my opinion, that is an unfair business practice. Before getting any service, my advice to customers is to ask to see all of a salon’s licenses and sterilized equipment. If a customer goes to a salon offering a $15 mani/pedi, they should probably assume they are receiving services from underpaid, exploited workers. There are many salons in Queens offering very highend, excellent services. Regardless of the culture of salon operators and employees, all businesses must operate under the same laws to make salons safe for clients and competitive. We must all pay our taxes and follow state regulations.


QC05282015
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