CITYWIDE

REPORTS OF SUSPICIOUS PACKAGES TRIPLE

Reports of suspicious packages around the city have more than tripled since last week’s terrorist bombings in London, police said yesterday.

In the five days following the overseas attacks on July 7, police logged 303 reports of suspicious packages, Paul Browne, the New York Police Department’s chief spokesman, said. There were 82 such reports in the same span last year.

City officials have told New Yorkers they can help prevent attacks like those in London by watching out for unattended bags and packages, or suspicious-looking devices that could be bombs. The spike in reports, though all unfounded, was welcome, Mr. Browne said. “The public has responded to our request to be vigilant,” he said.

In one case yesterday, commuters called police after spotting an unattended briefcase on a water taxi during the morning rush hour in Lower Manhattan. Authorities shut down a pier near Wall Street and called out the bomb squad, and aviation and harbor units before determining someone had accidentally left the bag behind. Mr. Browne estimated that the department has spent an additional $1 million a day in overtime since ramping up security measures for public transportation in the wake of the London attacks, which killed at least 52 people.

– Associated Press

HEALTH DEPARTMENT COMPLETES NICOTINE PATCH DISTRIBUTION

Yesterday marked the completion of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s latest nicotine patch program. The campaign, which ran for 36 days, reached one in 12 of New York City’s heavy smokers.

The city agency distributed 45,700 nicotine patch kits, each worth about $150, or $8.3 million total. The kits were provided free of charge by Pfizer Incorporated. They were given to smokers who called the 311 hotline on a first-call, first-served basis.

“Cessation treatment works. If the success of this program is similar to that of our program two years ago, approximately 5,000 premature deaths will be prevented through this effort,” the Health Department commissioner, Thomas Frieden, said in a statement. The department is nearly done with follow-up phone calls to select patch recipients to determine whether or not they have started their nicotine replacement therapy and also to offer “cessation support” to those who request it.

– Special to the Sun

NTSB SAYS SAFETY ADVICE IGNORED AFTER TWA FLIGHT 800 TRAGEDY

The National Transportation Safety Board said yesterday that nine years after a fuel tank exploded on a flight out of John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 230 people onboard, the Federal Aviation Administration has done little to implement the board’s recommendations.

After the deadly explosion on TWA Flight 800 shortly after takeoff on July 17, 1996, caused by the ignition of a combustible mixture of fuel and air, the board, along with the FAA, recommended airlines pump inert nitrogen gas into jetliner fuel tanks to lessen the danger of an explosion, instead of running an airplane’s onboard air-conditioning to reduce the chance of a fuel tank explosion. The FAA, however, did not require the airlines to follow this protocol. A spokesman for the FAA could not be reached for comment.

The FAA and industry groups that have included Boeing and Airbus have previously rejected the idea of inerting systems for commercial jetliners as too costly and impractical.

– Special to the Sun

ALBANY

NEW YORK AUTHORIZES OUT-OF-STATE WINE SHIPMENTS

Governor Pataki yesterday authorized the direct shipment of wines into and out of New York, signaling a new era for state wineries hampered by alcoholic beverage laws dating back to the repeal of Prohibition in 1933.

“It is really the next important step for New York wineries to continue to grow,” Mr. Pataki said after a bill-signing ceremony at Lamoreaux Landing Wine Cellars in the heart of the burgeoning Finger Lakes wine country in west-central New York.

The new law, which takes effect in 30 days, allows New York connoisseurs to order wine by mail from wineries throughout the country.

A Supreme Court ruling in May struck down laws in New York and Michigan as discriminatory because they allowed in-state wineries, but not out-of-state businesses, to ship directly to consumers. The decision blew the lid off a hotly disputed distribution system that barred wineries in 24 states from shipping directly to out-of-state customers.

New York either had to let all wineries sell directly to consumers or block all shipments. While state wineries pushed hard to remove shipping restrictions, Mr. Pataki insisted on one compromise: limiting customers to orders of 36 cases a year from any winery.

– Associated Press

ASSEMBLYMAN SEEKS CHANGE IN EMINENT DOMAIN LAW

Not enough is being done to protect private property owners facing the seizure of their land by local governments pushing economic development projects, a state assemblyman said yesterday in announcing a bill to change New York’s eminent domain law.

The bill by Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, a Westchester Democrat, follows last month’s 5-4 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court saying cities may bulldoze people’s homes to make way for shopping malls or other private development. The ruling gave local governments broad power to seize private property to generate tax revenue. Mr. Brodsky, who has led investigations of industrial development agencies and local development corporations, said while economic growth is a legitimate goal, in many cases local authorities have done more for private companies than public good when seizing property for business development projects.

– Associated Press