WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES DECEMBER 19, 2019 13
LETTERS AND COMMENTS
WHY WON’T THE
DOE MENTION
CHRISTMAS?
As this wonderful holiday season
continues, why is it that the NYC
DOE cannot list the period during the
last week in December as “Christmas
recess” on its academic calendar for
each school year?
Every other holiday, among
them Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur,
Passover, Diwali and Chinese
New Year are always listed as days
off during the school year, but
Christmas is never mentioned. The
only Christian holy day that is listed
on the school calendar each academic
year is Good Friday.
As a retired teacher and a Catholic,
I fi nd it very insulting that the DOE
is not listing Christmas among its
holidays. Do people at the DOE
have a problem even saying “Merry
Christmas?”
Where is the diversity?
This writer would like to extend
to everyone in the NYC Public School
System, the UFT, as well as the NYC
DOE my best and most sincerest
wishes for a Merry Christmas, Happy
Hanukkah,Happy Kwanzaa and
Happy New Year.
John Amato
Fresh Meadows
SNAPS
QUEENS STREET REFLECTIONS
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OP-ED
Protecting tenants
against landlord
harassment
BY LETITIA JAMES
In my years representing New Yorkers
as an attorney and elected offi cial, I
have worked with rent-regulated tenants
subjected to some appalling tactics
by their landlords to force them out of
their homes.
Despite the severity of these acts and
so many others, not a single landlord
has ever been convicted of tenant harassment
under a 20-year old state law
intended to prevent such behavior. That’s
because the standard to prove criminal
culpability for tenant harassment was
impossibly high. That changes starting
this week.
My offi ce spearheaded the passage
of a new law that will fi nally make it
possible to hold landlords accountable
when they engage in abusive behavior
towards tenants.
Tenant harassment has become a big
business; in fact, an entire real estate
investment model was created on the
basis of purchasing buildings with signifi
cant numbers of rent-regulated units
and then using heavy-handed tactics to
force out those tenants to maximize a
building’s value.
This is not a new problem. Culprits
have included small landlords and
some of the biggest and most notable
real estate tycoons in the city, including
Donald Trump.
Before he was president, Trump purchased
a building with rent-regulated
tenants. He then hired, in his own words,
a company that “specialized in relocating
tenants,” and embarked on a fi ve-year
campaign of tenant harassment.
Before passage of our law, prosecutors
had to meet a remarkably high standard
to prove harassment: that the landlord
wanted to force out the tenant and, in
so doing, intentionally or recklessly
caused physical injury to a tenant. This
defi nition fails to capture all sorts of the
most common – and dangerous – tactics
including those referenced here, many
of which are objectively harassment but
might not ever cause an actual physical
injury.
This new law will make landlords
think twice before they use abusive tactics
against their tenants, and will give
tenants the proper protections to defend
against this type of abuse — abuse that
we all know should be prohibited.
To be clear, landlords will still be
allowed to pursue lawful evictions of
rent-regulated tenants. But the law will
recognize the insidious tactics that bad
actors have previously been free to employ
to intimidate and abuse tenants.
It’s unconscionable for a landlord to
unlawfully force a family from its home
simply to improve his own bottom-line.
Now prosecutors in New York will fi -
nally have the tools they need to prevent
abuse and tenants throughout New York
will be safer.
Letitia James is the attorney general of
New York State.
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