NYC Mayor Eric Adams Holds Press Briefing On Improving Safety For Tourism Industry

Forbes Breaking News

On Thursday, NYC Mayor Eric Adams held a press briefing on tourism safety.

Transcript

00:00All right good morning everyone. I am Vilda Vera Mayuga, Commissioner of the New

00:09York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. Thank you so much for

00:14being here today. Visitors flock to our city to enjoy all we have to offer from

00:23food to culture and as the folks behind me here know it is crucial we do all

00:32that we can to ensure they have a safe and comfortable stay. Tourism is a vital

00:39part of our economy and we're committed to supporting our city's hotel industry

00:45but none of this would be possible without the hard work of thousands of

00:52hotel workers. Earlier this year more than 600 hotels in our city were required

01:02to apply for a license to operate and implement enhanced protections for both

01:07guests and workers. I want to thank HTC and President Rich Morocco for their

01:15advocacy and support of their workers. Councilmember Julie Manning for sharing our

01:24commitment to ensuring that our city's guests and hotel staff are safe. And now I

01:30will turn it over to Mayor Adams. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

01:37You guys, you guys, tourists visiting? From where? All over?

01:44Okay, make sure you stay in a good hotel and spend a lot of money, okay?

01:51Just such an important piece of legislation and I want to just really thank Rich and HTC and all of

01:59our partners to make sure that our hotel workers and guests have a safe environment and this is what

02:09when we came into office, you think about crime was skyrocketing. You saw the level of guns that were on

02:15our street and now we're seeing the lowest numbers of shootings and homicide and recorded history of

02:21the city and we've seen all of our small businesses are now growing. Highest number of small businesses,

02:26highest numbers of businesses and this is a direct result on public safety. Keeping people safe means a lot

02:34and our administration, we have focused on that on every area of dealing with how people are safe. It doesn't

02:44matter if it's closing illegal smoke shops or if it's removing guns off the streets of the city of

02:50New York. All those dangerous pusky mopeds and two-wheelers that we see move around and so when you think

02:57about safety, rarely do people think about those who are employed in our hotel industry and that's why

03:04the hotel safe hotels act was so significant and I remember speaking with the president of Morocco

03:14earlier when he was talking about it. It was clearly one of the most significant and important pieces

03:20of legislation because he heard it from his members all the time. We've witnessed some of the high profile

03:26profile cases of hotel workers that were assaulted, hotel workers that were unfairly treated and we knew

03:34we had to do something about it because public safety does not stop at the lobby of a hotel. It

03:39continues into every room, every ballroom, every hall, every corridor and that's what this bill is about.

03:48It's about hotel front desk staff at all hotels and security guards at large with training employees

03:56or signs of human trafficking and giving out panic buttons. We're going to make sure guest rooms are clean

04:03every day and we're going to protect hotel workers who have been retaliated against. These are significant

04:10parts of this legislation and our hotels, as I stated, must be clean, safe and dignified for tourists and

04:17workers alike. This legislation will help make sure that it is the case and will continue to be the case. Public

04:25safety, as I stated, will always be the prerequisite to our prosperity and nothing plays out more than our

04:32large number of hotel rooms. We witnessed a major recovery in our hotels post-pandemic. People thought

04:41it was going to take us five years to turn it around, but just the opposite. Tourists are back.

04:47Broadway has had its finest 12 months in recorded history. We're seeing tourist dollars flood into our

04:54city. 65 million tourists last year and our hotels were there for us as well as we did with the migrants and

05:01asylum seeker crisis. Rich and HCC played a major role in assisting us through that crisis. And now that

05:08we look at 90 percent of those who came in our care has taken the next step on the journey, now we're

05:13seeing our hotels fill up again with tourists. And just job well done, such an important bill,

05:19a real milestone for our city, the city council, the union, as well as all those who were involved. I just

05:27want to say thank you that we got it done. And this is a real signature issue issue for this union.

05:32I want to turn it over now to the president of the union, Rich Farroko. All right, good morning.

05:43So we are incredibly proud to be here today to celebrate and commemorate the implementation of the

05:51Safe Hotels Act. That statute is without question the most significant regulatory law regarding hotels

06:00that has been passed in our city's entire history. As a matter of fact, before the enactment of the

06:05Safe Hotels Act, there was really no meaningful regulation of hotels whatsoever, which is incredible

06:12when you think about how important that industry is to the city, right? The the hospitality sector brings

06:19in tens of billions of dollars of revenue every year, tens of millions of visitors from across the

06:25world, like we just saw, come to our city and stay in our hotels every year. Tens of thousands of New

06:32Yorkers work hard every day to staff those hotels, and tens of thousands more live in the neighborhoods

06:38of these hotels and are affected by the way they operate. And without smart, common sense regulations,

06:46any industry, but certainly an industry as big as and as important as the hospitality industry,

06:51can have significant detrimental effects on our city. The Safe Hotels Act changes that. It makes the

06:59hospitality industry better. It makes it safer for guests, for workers, and for the communities.

07:06Now, obviously, from our union's perspective, our number one priority is ensuring that workers are safe

07:12on the job and that they're treated fairly. And this act has a host of protections for hotel workers

07:18that show that this city and this government value hospitality workers, that they recognize that they

07:25are the backbone of this very important economic engine. But the law also protects guests and ensure

07:32that they are both safe and that their stays are clean and sanitary by imposing minimum staffing and

07:38cleanliness standards. And look, a good hotel that provides good service to its guests makes the

07:45entire industry stronger and that benefits all of us. You know, and finally, this bill makes it safer for

07:52the neighborhoods that house hotels by purging that criminal element that can take root in hotels

07:59and spread to the surrounding neighborhoods. And while regulating the hotel industry may have been

08:05innovative, may even be groundbreaking in the city, I think the goals of making the industry safer

08:12and better are fairly modest and uncontroversial. But getting this law passed was not easy because

08:19certain moneyed interests spent millions of dollars trying to kill it. They hired PR agents to smear the

08:26names of the proponents. They threatened to spend millions more campaigning against those that supported

08:32the act. They ran an all-out anti-union, anti-worker, anti-consumer campaign. And they failed. And they failed

08:43spectacularly. Because our city can't be bought. It can't be bullied. New Yorkers are really good at telling

08:51people like that exactly where they can go and what they can do to themselves. And that's exactly what they

08:56did here. And because of that, we now have regulations that is going to ensure that this

09:02giant industry that employs so many people, that affects so many people's lives, is safe and clean

09:08for everyone involved. And for that, I want to thank a lot of people. And I'm going to start with DCWP

09:14and Commissioner Mayuga for working really hard on the implementing regulations. And they've been working

09:20hard now, and they will be for years to come, I'm sure, ensuring that hotels comply with all the

09:26requirements of the act. I'd like to thank City Council, and in particular the bill sponsor, Julie

09:31Menon and Speaker Adams, for passing this groundbreaking bill. And most of all, I would like to thank Mayor

09:39Adams, who has not only been a real friend and ally for hotel workers, but was instrumental in passing this

09:48law and will be instrumental to ensure that it is put into effect and complied with to the benefit of

09:54all New Yorkers. So thank you everyone and congratulations. Thank you.

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