Any good bar goes through a lot of cans, bottles, cardboard pretty quickly — not to mention all the trash that can accumulate — so it’s important for bar owners that this detritus be hauled away in a timely manner before it becomes a nuisance. But the owner of one bar in New Jersey says city-contracted sanitation workers tried to shake him down — not for money, but for free booze.
And we’re apparently not talking about “Hey man, how about a beer?” This is more like “Give us lots of liquor every week or else.”
CBS 2 in NYC has the story of the Jersey City bar that was first approached in mid-August by a sanitation worker for the Jersey City Incinerator Authority, an independent company contracted by the city.
The worker allegedly wanted to propose a rather unfair deal with the bar’s operators.
“He informed my employee his supervisor told him he could no longer pick up our recycling, but he would do so if we bribed him with liquor,” the owner tells CBS 2.
When the bartender turned down the offer, the man promised to return — a promise he made good on last week in another meeting caught on security camera footage.
“They asked for liquor, and made it clear they would have to supply them liquor on a weekly basis for this gentleman and his entire truck in order for them to continue picking up our trash,” recalls the owner, who claims that the Incinerator Authority tried to intimidate him into not pursuing the issue.
“They said that if I pursued the complaint that I would have city inspectors come through my business, so it was a threat not to pursue the complaint,” he explains.
The city, which does not manage the Incinerator Authority, says it is looking into this incident and that it is working to end its deal with the Authority “after a long history of corruption,” including the July 4 arrest of sanitation workers who are accused of taking money to commingle construction debris with city trash.
by Chris Morran via Consumerist
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