New York Desk
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

CITYWIDE
COUNCIL VOTES TO OVERRIDE ‘PAY TO PRAY’ BILL VETO
New Yorkers will once again get a free pass on feeding the meter one day a week. The City Council voted yesterday to override a mayoral veto of a bill suspending parking meter fees on Sundays. Supporters of the bill, including the Democratic nominee for mayor, Fernando Ferrer, said the Sunday meter rules were unfair to churchgoers and created a situation in which congregants had to “pay to pray.” Some also said the free parking would encourage shopping and help city businesses. Mayor Bloomberg yesterday dismissed the law, calling it “just an election-year pandering bill.” He said the most likely result would be that people would park their cars for 24 hours, holding spaces for longer than they needed and preventing others from using them on Sundays.
– Special to the Sun
BLOOMBERG ON ‘WHIRLWIND TOUR DE HEALTH’
Mayor Bloomberg took what he called a “whirlwind tour de health “yesterday, stopping in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx to mark milestones in the city’s $1.3 billion program to bolster public hospitals. The largest component was at Harlem Hospital, which broke ground on a $243 million renovation. At Kings County Hospital Center, the mayor presided over the ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new $145 million emergency care, diagnostic, and treatment pavilion, which is part of a $500 million overhaul of the Brooklyn hospital. And at Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center in the South Bronx, Mr. Bloomberg helped break ground on an expansion of the hospital’s emergency department. At two of the three stops, the mayor spoke while roughly two dozen members of the New York State Nurses Association chanted outside, protesting the lack of a union contract with the city. Mr. Bloomberg said after the events that contract negotiations were ongoing.
– Special to the Sun
JUDGE: EXCEEDINGLY HARSH SENTENCES FOR CRACK COCAINE TROUBLING
Another federal judge yesterday joined the chorus of jurists who say crack cocaine sentences are too harsh and that disparities between those sentenced for dealing crack cocaine and those penalized for powder cocaine cut along racial lines. Judge Shira Scheindlin in Manhattan wrote that she found it unsettling that a defendant who deals 5 grams of crack cocaine faces the same sentence as someone who deals 500 grams of powder cocaine. “In the 11 years that I have served as a district court judge, I have been troubled by the exceedingly harsh sentences imposed on those who deal in crack cocaine,” Judge Scheindlin wrote. She said the laws punish crack cocaine dealers 100 times more severely than powder cocaine dealers, causing a disparate impact on black defendants over white and Hispanic defendants and unfairly targeting low-level street sellers over major suppliers.
– Associated Press
EXECUTIVES PLEAD GUILTY TO STEALING FROM TRUMP TOWER PROJECT
Two construction company executives who were accused of stealing millions of dollars from a Trump Tower building project on Fifth Avenue for the British luxury retailer Asprey Limited pleaded guilty yesterday to grand larceny charges. Ted Kohl, 63, of Manhattan, and James Stumpf, 62, of Guttenberg, N.J., admitted that they and their contracting company, IDI Construction Company, violated the law by taking and using for themselves the money that Asprey gave them to pay their 24 subcontractors. Kohl was a salesman and owner at IDI, and Stumpf was the company’s president, prosecutors said. The Asprey job had been estimated at $17 million but eventually cost the retailer more than $40 million, prosecutors said when the two were indicted in June.
– Associated Press
COUNCIL MEMBER INTRODUCES BILL TO LOWER PROPERTY TAXES
City Council Member Michael McMahon introduced a bill yesterday to decrease the city’s property tax rate for homeowners. If approved, the measure would bring the rate down to less than 11%.The current rate is about 12%. Mr. McMahon, a Democrat of Staten Island, said that he thought the city acted responsibly when it increased property taxes for homeowners by 18.5% during the fiscal crisis after the 2001 terrorist attacks. But, he said, with the inflated property tax assessments and new state regulations, homeowners are being slammed with too many property expenses and deserve a rollback. He said he was willing to negotiate the percentage of the decrease. It was unclear yesterday whether his bill would get support in the council. Mayor Bloomberg and the council have provided a $400 property tax rebate to homeowners for the last two years.
– Staff Reporter of the Sun
MANHATTAN
COUNCIL APPROVES MORE RESTRICTIVE ZONING REGULATIONS
The City Council voted yesterday to reduce substantially the height and size of allowable new development in the far West Village. The more restrictive zoning regulations, which were approved by the City Planning Commission last month, took effect immediately. The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, which helped craft the regulations, says that recent rapid development in the area has threatened to erode the neighborhood’s character. The organization’s director, Andrew Berman, said yesterday that the council’s fast-tracked approval of the changes thwarted developers who were trying to “beat the clock” with large projects that will now be considered illegal. One of those developments was a planned 110-foottall luxury tower addition to the historic three-story stable owned by the artist Julian Schnabel. The Greenwich Village waterfront may soon get further protection from development when the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission considers expanding the existing historic district designation next week.
– Staff Reporter of the Sun
POLICE BLOTTER
GRIFTER STEALS THOUSANDS FROM GROUP IN BLOOMINGDALE’S SCAM
A grifter posing as a salesman stole thousands of dollars from a group of people in an elaborate scam, police officials said. A group pooled their money together after they were told that they would be able to purchase merchandise from Bloomingdale’s at wholesale prices, the authorities said. Between 1:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. on Saturday, the victims gave the alleged salesman $20,000 and waited outside the loading dock of the department store at 1000 Third Ave. The suspect disappeared into the store and never returned. The victims contacted the loss prevention department at Bloomingdale’s and were told that the suspect did not work at the store and that no one was selling wholesale goods there.
– Staff Reporter of the Sun
WOMAN SUFFERING FROM CANCER ALLEGEDLY COMMITS SUICIDE
A 67-year-old woman who suffered from a debilitating form of cancer killed herself by putting a bag over her head, the authorities said. On Saturday at 4:30 p.m., the woman’s husband, 72, allegedly found her in their Riverside Drive bathroom, bent forward at the waist with her head and hands between her knees. She had a plastic bag over her head, which was sealed around her neck with tape, law enforcement officials said. The woman’s husband reportedly said she had terminal breast cancer and was incapable of taking care of herself and therefore no longer wanted to live. The woman did not leave a suicide note, officials said.
– Staff Reporter of the Sun
STATEWIDE
eBAY AGREES TO BLOCK STUN-GUN SALES TO NEW YORKERS
Online auctioneer eBay Incorporated will block the sale and shipment of stun guns and other illegal weapons to New York residents after working with Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, it was announced yesterday. In an investigation that started last year, Mr. Spitzer’s office found that eBay users were easily able to buy stun guns through the company’s Web site. Investigators, posing as ordinary customers, bought 16 stun guns from 16 different sellers on eBay. The sellers, 14 of whom are from outside New York, are believed to have sold more than 1,100 stun guns to New Yorkers from September 2003 to August 2005, investigators said. Included in the sales were a 900,000-volt Taser stun gun valued at $57 and a $400 “Air Taser” that delivers a 50,000-volt disabling shock through darts connected by wires to the weapon.
– Associated Press