Labor to Squeeze Council Speaker
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20121217-NEWS--0001-NAT-CCI-CN_-- 12/14/2012 6:44 PM Page 1 REPORT SMALL BUSINESS MADE IN NYC If you can make it here, you can sell it CRAIN’S® anywhere P. 13 NEW YORK BUSINESS VOL. XXVIII, NO. 51 WWW.CRAINSNEWYORK.COM DECEMBER 17-23, 2012 PRICE: $3.00 Labor to squeeze council speaker Unions have leverage on sick days, other hot issues as Quinn seeks mayoralty in 2013 BY ANDREW J. HAWKINS New York’s powerful unions have City Council Speaker Christine Quinn in their sights—and tremendous leverage in legislative battles—as she competes for their support in the 2013 mayoral race. Starting next month, a coalition of labor groups will resurrect the effort to mandate paid sick leave, a campaign set back only temporarily by Super- storm Sandy. Ms. Quinn, who has blocked the legislation amid concerns about the cost for small businesses,will be the sole target. Unions are also seeking to loosen restrictions on their ability to spend on OCTAVIO HOYOS got a See QUINN on Page 23 three-year, $15,000 loan with an interest rate of 4.99% to rebuild his Howard Beach, Queens, cleaning business. Broadway buck ennis fall season Borrowers beware a big flop Withering reviews, ting calls from his mortgage company threaten- Why so many hit BY AARON ELSTEIN ing foreclosure. Government assistance would early closures; even certainly be welcome, but mostly what’s avail- stars can’t save shows After Sandy slammed Staten Island,Joseph Del able are loans, and debt is the last thing Mr. Del by Sandy aren’t Villar threw every dollar he had into reopening Villar needs more of. his business, Boulevard Cleaners. Between his “I can’t afford to pay what I owe right now,” BY THERESA AGOVINO grabbing the best personal savings and help from his family, he he said. “What would I do with another loan?” was able to raise the $100,000 needed to install Mr. Del Villar’s misery is shared by thou- Annie is an orphan in more ways than new washing machines, drywall and pumps. sands of entrepreneurs throughout the city. It one. interest rates Now he’s tapped out. Business is running at helps explain why fewer than 300 companies The revival of the musical about the 50% below pre-storm levels and, after skipping have been approved for disaster-recovery loans, optimistic, parentless redhead is the they’ll ever see two payments on his house, he has started get- See BORROWERS on Page 24 only show that opened this fall that will continue to the spring, excluding lim- ited-run shows. Two other musicals, NEXT WEEK 2013BOOKOFLISTS Scandalous:The Life and Trials of Aimee Semple McPherson and Chaplin, an- Every company you need to nounced within a day of each other ELECTRONIC EDITION know about in every industry earlier this month that they were going dark in what has been a mostly joyless in New York Broadway fall season marked by bad NEWSPAPER See BROADWAY on Page 22 20121217-NEWS--0002-NAT-CCI-CN_-- 12/14/2012 7:28 PM Page 1 STATS AND THE CITY START THE COUNTDOWN More than 1 million people are expected to crowd into Times Square to ring in the new year. Billions around the globe will watch from homes and bars. FYICRAINSNEWYORK.COM LED lights on the six-ton32,256 Waterford Crystal New Year’s Eve ball 1 ton Banking behemoths Weight of confetti blown into the air when the ball drops pony up but don’t pay 17K Hotel rooms in the Times Square area ast week was a good one for money-laundering banks eager to avoid a trip to court. Years Dick Clark produced TV’s 40New Year’s Eve party, before his death HSBC and Standard Chartered, two large in April at age 82 L British-based financial institutions, have come to terms with platoons of prosecutors from Washington and First year New Year’s Eve1904 was celebrated in Times Square, New York after the banks were charged with funneling drawing 200,000 revelers hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of Mexican newscom Sources: Times Square Alliance, druglords, banned Iranian parties and the like. HSBC will pay $1.9 billion in forfeitures and The New York Times penalties. Standard Chartered will pony up $327 million. The good news, at least from the banks’ perspective, is that both avoided potentially ruinous istockphoto criminal indictments and instead entered into what are known as deferred prosecution WHO’S GOT GREEN? agreements.That means they won’t be charged if they sin no more for a specific period of time. Average household income varies widely across the city, with those in Authorities even declined to charge any individuals connected to the misdeeds. Manhattan faring nearly three times as well as those in the Bronx. It is becoming a familiar drill for prosecutors. According to law firm Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, Household income in the past 12 months* $127,411 the feds have entered into no less than 200 nonprosecution agreements over the past decade. $88,221 $64,845 $72,324 They save the government the time and uncertainty that trials entail, and free companies from $48,609 having to explain just what misdeeds they are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to lay to rest. A unit of Switzerland’s UBS could yet become the exception. The New York Times reported Bronx Brooklyn Queens Manhattan Staten Island that the Swiss bank could face criminal charges from U.S. and international authorities this week Source: U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey *In inflation-adjusted 2011 dollars over alleged interest-rate rigging. —aaron elstein ADDICTED TO NUMBERS? GET A DAILY DOSE AT @STATSANDTHECITY DELTA LANDS VIRGIN. Delta Air Lines left of a fallen rival in a bankruptcy is elbowing its way into the front of auction scheduled for January.Monte HOORAY! THIS WEEK IN CRAIN’S the pack in the lucrative New York- is expected to pay about $14 million NEW YORKERS’ life expectancy is now to-London route. The world’s sec- for New York Westchester Square 80.9 years, two years more than the ond-largest airline is spending $360 Medical Center,which will end inpa- average American’s, according to new IN THE BOROUGHS-------------------------- 3 figures from the mayor’s office. million for a 49% stake in Virgin At- tient services and reconfigure for out- IN THE MARKETS---------------------------------- 4 lantic Airways. The new partnership patient care. … GROCER SCALES THE INSIDER -----------------------------------------------6 will give it a 36% share of the market, BACK. FreshDirect, facing opposition a distant second to British Airways’ to its South Bronx relocation plan, BUSINESS PEOPLE --------------------------- 8 and American’s 51%.But the deal still will give up three acres by the Harlem CORPORATE LADDER --------------------9 faces hurdles. Delta and Virgin need River where it had planned to park to be granted antitrust immunity. delivery trucks.... HAIL TO THE SMART- OPINION -------------------------------------------------------- 10 Among other things PHONE. New Yorkers GREG DAVID--------------------------------------------11 regulators will want to will have the opportu- see is what effect less nity to let their fingers OY VEY! ALAIR TOWNSEND -------------------------12 ‘We cannot competition could and cellphones hail FISH ARE MISLABELED at restaurants, REPORT: simply accept even high-end ones, and at grocery stores have on airfares. … cabs for them in the across the city, a new study found. SMALL BUSINESS---------------------13 U.S. CASHES LAST AIG future. The Taxi & CHIPS. Four years af- this as a Limousine Commis- FOR THE RECORD---------------------------17 NEW YORK, NEW YORK ter rescuing insurance routine sion is giving the CLASSIFIEDS ----------------------------------------- Volunteering over the 18 giant American In- green light to a one- ternational Group product of year pilot program to holidays is as competitive as REAL ESTATE DEALS-------------------21 scoring a reservation at Per with a $182 billion- modern legalize “e-hail” SOURCE LUNCH-------------------------------- Se. If you haven’t signed up by 26 with-a-B transfusion, smartphone apps. the feds are selling American life’ That’s likely to be bad now,fuggedaboudit! P. 25 OUT AND ABOUT ------------------------------27 their last 234 million —New York Rep. Jerrold news for livery cab- CORRECTIONS shares of the compa- Nadler, on the Newtown, drivers, who fear the 1,776-foot height.… MOMATH = FUN. Brooke Denihan Barrett is the co-CEO of Denihan Hospitality Group. Her surname was ny. The 16% share Conn., school massacre technology will cut First there was the Met, then misstated in the Dec. 10 “Oh, brother!” may net nearly $8 bil- that left 27 dead, including into their business. … MoMA.Now we have MoMath.The 20 children 1 WTC’S CROWNING Barrie Berg, the new global chief executive at ?What If! Innovation Partners, was lion on top of the $15 National Museum of Mathematics, previously the firm’s chief executive, Americas. That information was misstated in the billion profit the gov- MOMENT. The first the continent’s only museum dedicat- Dec. 10 Executive Moves. ernment has already made.The news sections of 1 World Trade Center’s ed exclusively to math,is now open for Information technology firm EMC Corp. has 23,851 U.S. employees. That number was came a day after AIG sold off 90% of crowning 408-foot-tall spire are business at the perfect location.It’s on misstated in the Dec. 3 Best Places to Work section. its aircraft leasing business for nearly being bolted into place atop what is East 26th Street, right across the Technology firm Control Group Inc. generated between $12 million and $20 million in $5 billion. … BIG BRONX HOSPITAL now a 104-story tower.By the time all street from Madison Square Park,the 2011 and between $10 million and $15 million in 2010.