Int. No. 205

By Council Members Lancman, Barron, Constantinides, Johnson, Levine, Mendez and Rodriguez (by request of the Manhattan Borough President)

A Local Law to amend the administrative code of the city of New York, in relation to requiring that all hotels in the city of New York provide their housekeeping staff with silent alarms for their protection.

Be it enacted by the Council as follows:

Section 1.  Section 10-101 of the administrative code of the city of New York is amended by lettering the existing paragraph as subdivision a and by adding a new subdivision b to read as follows: 

a. The owners and proprietors of all manufactories, hotels, tenement houses, apartment houses, office buildings, boarding and lodging-houses, warehouses, stores and offices, theatres and music halls, and the authorities or persons having charge of all hospitals and asylums, and of the public schools and other public buildings, churches and other places where large numbers of persons are congregated for purposes of worship, instruction or amusement, and all piers, bulkheads, wharves, pier sheds, bulkhead sheds or other waterfront structures, shall provide such means of communicating alarms of accident or danger to the police department, as the police commissioner may prescribe.

b. 1. The owners and proprietors of all hotels shall provide their housekeeping staff with silent alarms for their personal protection as the police commissioner may prescribe.

2. The department of consumer affairs shall enforce the provisions of this subdivision, receive complaints regarding non-compliance with this chapter and investigate any such complaints received by the department of consumer affairs in a timely manner.

i. Any person alleging a violation of this chapter shall have the right to file a complaint with the department of consumer affairs within one hundred eighty days of the date such person knew or should have known of the alleged violation.

ii. Any person claiming to be aggrieved by an act that violates this section may make, sign and file with the department of consumer affairs a verified complaint in writing and proceed with such complaint. Upon receiving a complaint alleging a violation of this section, the department of consumer affairs shall investigate such complaint. The department of consumer affairs shall keep complainants reasonably notified regarding the status of their complaint and any resultant investigation. If the department of consumer affairs believes that a violation has occurred, it shall issue a notice of violation to the employer that is the subject of the complaint. The commissioner of consumer affairs shall prescribe the form and wording of such notices of violation. The notice of violation shall be returnable to the administrative tribunal authorized to adjudicate violations of this chapter.

iii. The department of consumer affairs may also itself make, sign and file a verified complaint alleging that an employer has violated this section and proceed with such complaint pursuant to the provisions of subparagraph ii of this section.

iv. Any owner or proprietor who violates this subdivision shall be subject to a fine of not more than fifty dollars for each instance a silent alarm was not provided to a housekeeper pursuant to subdivision b of this section up to a maximum of one thousand dollars per building.

 § 2.   This local law shall take effect ninety days after it shall have been enacted into law.

MWC

LS #681

Int. No. 842-2012

3/7/14