That there are coyotes on Long Island now, where they haven’t been seen before (”Coyotes are firmly established throughout all New York counties except Long Island and New York City”), is freaky enough without seeing them within city limits:

Animal control officers set a trap at Rochdale Village after a coyote or similar creature was spotted prowling around a parking lot in the sprawling south Queens cooperative housing complex.

A buffalo wing riot in Brooklyn last week (”Councilwoman Letitia James [. . .] pointed the finger at the management of the sports bar for recklessly promoting its 50-cent ‘Wing Tuesdays’ to students”), and now video game characters jacking cabbies:

The cabbie beat up by thugs dressed as Super Mario Brothers spoke out about his ordeal Sunday and demanded tougher laws against assaults on taxi drivers.

“I was really scared. . . . At the time, I really think I’m going to die,” said Ndiaye Serigne, 48, of Harlem, who was robbed and pummeled by four men dressed as Mario, Luigi and other characters at a gas station.

It will cost $1 billion to replace the Kosciuszko Bridge:

The pricetag for a state plan to replace the crumbling Kosciuszko Bridge by 2017 has ballooned to more than a billion bucks to accommodate the eight-year inflation expected during the long-awaited and long-needed replacement.

For that price, we might get something truly stunning — a concrete cable-stayed straight out of a science fiction movie (or the downtowns of many other cities). In layman’s terms, the futuristic bridge resembles two space-turkey wishbones standing upright with diagonal connection cables.

Last month, the Kosciuszko Bridge Stakeholders Advisory Council — a Department of Transportation-appointed panel of local activists — chose three final designs for the new 1.1-mile span.

In addition to the front-runner [. . .] were a simple box girder design and a crescent arch similar to the Bayonne Bridge.

They would all cost a lot, but Adam Levine, spokesman of the state Department of Transportation, said the cost was expected.

“For a bridge that is a mile long in New York City, $1 billion is the going rate,” he said.

Just as he did for Bush in 2004*, Rudy Giuliani argues that only Michael Bloomberg can save us from the post-9/11 specter of international terrorism:

Former mayor Rudy Giuliani warned Sunday that crime rates could soar to 1990s levels and the city could again be a victim of terrorism if Mayor Bloomberg doesn’t win reelection.

Giuliani’s dire predictions came during a tag-team campaign swing – the first time Bloomberg has tapped the one-time GOP star for help on the stump this election season.

“This city could very easily be taken back in a very different direction,” Giuliani told a crowd of ultra-Orthodox Jews at a breakfast sponsored by Brooklyn’s Borough Park Jewish Community Council. “It could very easily be taken back to the way it was with the wrong political leadership. Politics is important. It’s important toour safety. It’s important to our security.”

Bloomberg said that New York could become another Detroit.

“We all know that cities have gone through great boom times and then turned around and collapsed. Take a look at Detroit,” he said. “It went from a great city with lots of good-paying jobs to a city that’s basically holding on for dear life. All of our gains are always in danger of being turned around.”

*(”The former mayor said he believed that Mr. Bush was in the better position to protect the country from further terrorist attacks. ”One of the reasons the world is safer now is that we are going out and trying to find our enemies and demobilizing them,” he said. ”I was sitting there in Congress the night Bush announced the Bush doctrine. And I remember leaving that night feeling better that the president of the United States had reversed 20 or 30 years playing defense” against potential enemies, he said.”)

See also: Bloomberg For Mayor 2009.

If you parsed this any more it would mean nothing, but I think Robert Gibbs means something along the lines of “Bill Thompson is a real man for all men”*:

On Friday afternoon, when much of the political world was transfixed by President Obama’s surprise Nobel Peace Prize, the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, was asked a seemingly throwaway question about the New York City mayor’s race, the last inquiry of a busy news briefing.

“Can you say who, exactly, the president supports in the mayoral race up in the city?” asked a reporter from The Daily News.

Mr. Gibbs at first seemed to mock the question. “New York-centric over there,” he said. “There’s more than one city.”

After a few moments of playful banter, he offered this: “The president is the leader of the Democratic Party, and as that would support the Democratic nominee.”

Who would that be? Mr. Gibbs did not say. But he did manage to invoke another name — Mr. Bloomberg’s.

“The president,” Mr. Gibbs said, “obviously has had a chance to, throughout campaigning and in his time both as a candidate and as a president, to meet, know and work with Mayor Bloomberg, and obviously has a tremendous amount of respect for what he’s done as well.”

When asked later to confirm that the president had, in fact, endorsed Mr. Thompson, a White House spokesman said that he had.

As word of the quasi endorsement reached Mr. Thompson, his campaign scrambled to issue a statement.

It read, “Yes we can in New York City: President Barack Obama supports Bill Thompson for mayor.”

Mr. Thompson rushed to his campaign office in Midtown Manhattan to hold a press conference. He stood at a lectern in a cramped room, beaming. “Let me just say how proud and honored I am to have been endorsed by the president of the United States today,” he said. “Obviously, he thinks I’m going to be the next mayor of the city of New York.”

*As in.

. . . and twins:

Seventeen months out of Rutgers University, they live in an unwelcome continuum of mass rejection. Between them, Kristy and Katie Barry, identical twins who grew up in Ohio, have applied for some 150 jobs: a magazine for diabetics, a Web site about board games and a commercial for green tea-flavored gum; fact-checking at Scholastic Books, copy editing for the celebrity baby section of People.com, road-tripping for College Sports Television.

They did not get any of these. More than a year has lapsed without so much as an interview. Apparently, even a canned response was impossible in New York.

Of course it’s just the Queens Gazette, but with all the talk about how the NYPD may have actually bungled the FBI’s recent terror bust, I kind of can’t believe the Gazette’s “editorial board” is arguing what they’re arguing:

Three weeks ago, suspects with ties to terrorist groups abroad were arrested here and in Denver, Colorado. The investigation that led to the arrests continues as we speak. Those arrests and the ongoing investigation that continues to ensure New York City’s ranking as the safest big city in America are due in large part to the efforts of the man the Gazette endorses for a third term as the city’s chief executive. Mayor Michael Bloomberg took office on Jan. 1, 2002, and for the last seven years has made the counter-terrorism measures of the New York City Police Department at home and abroad of equally high priority to police street and index crime eradication efforts.

Maybe it’s meant to be an ironic endorsement.

Do you give a fuck what drove these assholes to kill thousands of people? I’m not sure I really care:

The museum being built at the site of ground zero will display photos of the 19 men who hijacked the four airliners on Sept. 11, 2001, and may also include printed quotations from the so-called martyr videos they made before the attacks, in an effort to “create an accurate historical record,” the museum’s president said Friday.

The images of each hijacker will be roughly 4 inches wide and 6 inches tall, and mounted on a wall of the underground museum’s primary exhibition. The museum is exploring the idea of displaying some quotations next to the pictures, but no final decision has been made, and no text has been selected, said Joseph C. Daniels, president and chief executive of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center.

“We will not, and we do not, want to hide the truth of what happened, and identifying those who did it is core to that,” Mr. Daniels said. He added: “It answers the question of who did this. Let’s show the world the 19 individuals who boarded planes and murdered so many. To not do that would be a major disservice to the public.”

We really do live in the greatest country in the world.

And I guess he’s had a better year, so far at least:

Robert R. Hammond, 39, an artist and entrepreneur who had no experience in the world of public parks, has been paid about $1.2 million over the years of the High Line’s development — the vast majority of it since 2005. And his salary of $250,000 a year as president and executive director of the nonprofit he helped found, Friends of High Line, makes him one of the most generously compensated leaders of the 10 major park conservancies in the city.

. . .

Mr. Hammond’s salary, found in the organization’s tax filings, falls short of that of Douglas Blonsky, president of the Central Park Conservancy and administrator of the park. He earns a salary of $364,000 a year. But Mr. Hammond’s salary is considerably greater than his counterpart at the 526-acre Prospect Park in Brooklyn and about $45,000 better than the city’s parks commissioner, Adrian Benepe, who oversees approximately 1,700 parks, playgrounds and other recreation facilities.

. . .

The High Line said that Mr. Hammond’s compensation stems from the challenges of operating a park perched roughly 30 feet in the air with a fire code capacity, managing major fund-raising campaigns and working with the city to oversee the design and construction of the High Line, among other duties.

Wow, 30 whole feet in the air . . . maybe if you divide that by 15 feet, which seems to be how wide the thing is, and multiply that by 20 blocks long, you get some sort of formula that comes out to $250,000 a year . . . good thing they decided not to tax everyone within a mile of the place. But then again, you can’t get a peep show as easily in any other park in the city.

Bloomberg proposes tough new campaign finance reform ideas. Howard Wolfson saves the day:

“Mike Bloomberg doesn’t take a dime in special interest money,” Wolfson said. “No one will ever have to wonder whether contributions influence his decisions….He works only for the taxpayers.”

Dude, you’ll get more chicks with a million dollars and your own apartment, but whatever:

Waquas Mazhar, 19, won the New York Millionaire scratch-off game but will keep bunking with his siblings at his parents’ Midwood, Brooklyn, house.

“I just don’t know yet what I’m going to do with the money,” said Mazhar. “I just know I want to help my family and I want to stay living with them.”

Despite granting DC37 four percent raises during an economic downturn, the mayor doesn’t even get the union’s support, making it money well spent:

New York’s largest city workers union is expected to endorse Controller William Thompson for mayor this week, labor insiders say — a stunning switch from four years ago, when it backed Mayor Bloomberg.

The DC 37 endorsement would be a huge boost for Thompson’s underfunded campaign — not just for the volunteers and phone banks it can offer, but for the message it sends to other unions wary of bucking an incumbent mayor

. . .

DC 37 has 125,000 members and 50,000 retirees. Its members benefited from the generous 4% raises Bloomberg gave city unions last year, around the time he started his campaign to extend term limits so he could run again.

But DC 37 and its executive director, Lillian Roberts, are unhappy with Bloomberg for threatening to lay off its members and for opposing a bill to lift residency requirements for its workers, union leaders say.

The union bought subway ads this spring saying the city wastes $9 billion a year on private contracts that could be done by city workers. The ads blamed “City Hall,” not Bloomberg — but that could change.

And it’s not just DC37: Both the City Council and the Mayor’s office gave staffers raises based on that contract . . . and the best thing is that somehow Howard Wolfson finds the time to criticize donations to Thompson’s campaign. Unbelievable.

If you’re curious how much time, energy and resources are wasted — er, utilized — preparing for a Bloomberg press announcement, see Azi Paybarah’s slideshow here. Clearly the City is not wanting for money.

Taking its cue from the Parks Department and Board of Education, the Long Island Rail Road recently instituted a new volunteer program to encourage community participation and trim costs:

A witness has told police that a Long Island Rail Road engineer let a passenger operate a train bound for New York City.

MTA Police Chief Michael Coan says the train ran smoothly and no one was injured.

The witness told police that he saw another passenger in the cab without the engineer during part of the run on July 2.

The double-decker train left Port Jefferson at 6:45 a.m. It normally has about 400 passengers and goes up to 80 mph.

Pleasurecraft docking in that big oil spill between Brooklyn and Queens:

It’s one of the most polluted waterways in New York — a fetid stew of oil, sewage and sludge.

But Newtown Creek is paradise for Max Mulhern.

The 47-year-old London-based sculptor is spending part of his U.S. vacation docked at the notorious waterway separating Brooklyn and Queens as part of a quirky family boat trip.

“I like to stay off the beaten path,” Mulhern said on Thursday aboard his 40-foot sailboat. “It leads to much more interesting encounters.”

Keeping his boat tethered to a crumbling cement wall in an industrial section of Long Island City has another key perk: he’s staying in the city rent-free.

Mulhern, an accomplished skipper on an artist’s budget, seeks out the desolate and sometimes very dirty nooks as he travels along the East Coast en route to Maine.

On this, his second such boating trip in as many years, Mulhern has already spent two days docked at another unlikely locale, Coney Island Creek.

Location Scout: Newtown Creek.

It’s not good enough to willingly give unions 4 percent raises and then come back with the argument that they were somehow forced to do the same for managers:

A little before 5 p.m. on Friday, when much of the City Hall press corps was headed home for the weekend, the Bloomberg administration disclosed the raises — 4 percent retroactive to March 3, 2008, and another 4 percent raise effective this past March 3.

Senior aides to the mayor stand to gain the most. Deputy mayors, for example, will receive raises of more than $15,000. The salary of Patricia E. Harris, the first deputy mayor, will rise to $245,760, up from $227,219. Edward Skyler, the deputy mayor for operations, will make $212,614, up from $196, 574. The mayor’s press secretary, Stu Loeser, will earn $200,096, up from $185,000. The mayor himself takes a $1-a-year salary.

Aides to the mayor said the increases were long overdue. Traditionally, City Hall staff members, ranging from lawyers to secretaries, have received the same raises as members of District Council 37, the city’s biggest municipal labor union. Last fall, the mayor gave the union workers back-to-back 4 percent raises, but withheld raises from managers because of the souring economy.

Thompson should have said something along the lines of anyone can placate the unions with 4 percent raises in an economic downturn — we really need Bloomberg for that?

You need a license? Seriously? Apparently so:

Their comic-book adventure went awry when cops approached the dynamic duo on 43rd Street to see whether they had the required license to perform in costume in public . . .

There are probably too many police officers.

I suppose it could have been worse — going all the way to the Supreme Court, for example — but there seems to have been a settlement:

Yankee fans are now at liberty to go to the bathroom during the playing of “God Bless America” during the seventh-inning stretch, thanks to a settlement reached yesterday in Manhattan federal court.

Signing off on the deal were the Yankees, the New York Civil Liberties Union and Queens resident Bradford Campeau-Laurion, who was thrown out of Yankee Stadium last year after trying to hit the head midtune.

Location Scout: Yankee Stadium.

It’s good to see the mayor — especially after all that hyperventilating! — make another empty threat to lay off employees:

The Senate stalemate will cost New York at least $60 million a month, Mayor Bloomberg warned Wednesday — and the sudden budget hole may cost some city workers their jobs.

“Make no mistake about it, any less revenues mean fewer employees, because the city’s budget is basically hiring 300,000 of the best people that anybody’s ever put together and paying them,” Bloomberg said.

“If we don’t have that money, it’s going to hurt everybody.”

But seriously — “300,000 of the best people that anybody’s ever put together”? What’s with the sarcasm? Has the mayor beaten himself down, too?

Because croissants and cupcakes are exactly like hot dogs and soft-serve ice cream:

Monday was a routine day for Grant Di Mille and Samira Mahboubian, the owners of the Street Sweets food truck, a mobile trove of croissants, cupcakes and cookies that got rolling last month.

The couple loaded the truck by 6 a.m., parked in front of the Museum of Modern Art at 7, traded hostilities with other vendors from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and were surrounded by police officers by 2.

“The police told these guys that nobody owns the streets. But it sure doesn’t feel that way,” said Mr. Di Mille, who called the Midtown North precinct — not for the first time — when a jewelry vendor set up shop directly in front of his sales window.

In four weeks of business, the couple has been threatened at the depot where they park the truck; cursed by a gyro vendor who said that he would set their truck on fire; told to stay off every corner in Midtown by ice cream truck drivers; and approached by countless others with advice — both friendly and menacing — on how to get along on the streets.

“I want to be a good neighbor,” Mr. Di Mille said. “But I am nobody’s fool, and nobody’s pushover, and I should not have to carry a baseball bat on my truck in order to sell cupcakes.”

In the last two years, upscale food trucks have swarmed the streets, entrancing New Yorkers with everything from artisanal Earl Grey ice cream to vegan tacos. These highly visible trucks, their outspoken owners and their followers on Twitter, Facebook and food blogs, have broken the code of the streets that has long kept a relative peace among food vendors.

Turf wars are nothing new for carts selling kebabs and cheap coffee. But the makers of thumbprint cookies, chicken-Thai basil dumplings, and crème anglaise are not happy about the sharp elbows that are part of the city’s sidewalk economy, or the murky bureaucracy that oversees the issuing of permits.

I almost want John Sampson to win this battle:

Mayor Bloomberg accused the deadlocked Senate of trying to “destroy” the city’s school system — and said weakening mayoral control would be like reviving the Soviet Union.

Bloomberg, whose control over city schools will expire next week if Albany doesn’t act, warned of pending chaos.

“You want to talk about what would happen; just take a look at what happens when no one is in charge,” said Bloomberg, calling for the Senate to pass the bill the Assembly has approved.

“If the Senate passes something that differs by one word or more it is saying to the city: We want to resurrect the Soviet Union, we want to bring back chaos.” Bloomberg fumed.

“What [the senators] are doing is just saying to the parents, the students and the future of our city — ‘We’re going to destroy you.’ That’s the only possible explanation.”

Why stop at Bryant Park, the West 4th Street Courts or Central Park? Every city property should be rented out for events large and small:

A wealthy inmate was allowed to host a lavish bar mitzvah behind bars for his son at the downtown lockup known as the Tombs, The Post has learned.

The proud papa, Tuvia Stern, is a financial-scam artist who jumped bail and spent nearly 20 years on the lam.

City Correction Department officials permitted him to use his own caterer, who supplied kosher food, china, forks — and knives — for about 60 guests who partied and danced the hora for six hours in the jailhouse gym.

Stern’s family and friends were allowed to keep their cellphones — normally a huge security no-no. And Stern was given the OK to dress in clothing appropriate for the occasion.

The guest list at the jail included several prominent rabbis as well as Yaakov Shwekey, a popular Orthodox singer, and a band.

The city threw in its own present — overtime pay for the correction officers staffing the soiree.

The Dec. 30 bash was so successful that jailbird Stern chose the same venue four months later for his daughter Breindy’s engagement party for 10 family members, sources said.

Shame-faced Correction officials yesterday quietly disciplined five top employees, including a rabbi and an imam, for signing off on the bar mitzvah.

“I’ve never seen, in my career, anything as stupid as this,” said a Department of Correction insider about the bar mitzvah, which was permitted over the objections of at least one jail official. “It’s outrageous what transpired.”

Because that’s what I would have assumed, being that the last “pimp” I saw in Times Square was probably Terrence Howard at the AMC Empire 25:

In a shooting that recalled the grittier days of Times Square, one pimp murdered another Tuesday just outside a swanky hotel filled with tourists, police said.

The two pimps got into a “business dispute” on W. 43rd St. in front of the glitzy Westin Hotel just before 5:30 a.m., police said.

“That’s what people on the street are telling us — that what they did for a living, and the dispute, had something to do with that business,” Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said.

Location Scout: Times Square.

. . . then they move in the homeless shelter. Buried lede — at $2700 a month, developers everywhere should be volunteering to convert their bad investments into shelters:

City officials said the condos — which couldn’t attract buyers in the fizzled housing market — are part of an effort to help an “unprecedented” number of homeless families who have ended up on the street because of the tough economy.

Units priced at $350,000

It appears to be the first time a faltering upscale building has found a new purpose as a shelter, said Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York.

Neighbors were furious the 67-unit building on East New York Ave., where apartments were supposed to sell for $250,000 to $350,000, has been turned into a shelter.

“I’m a hardworking taxpayer, and I don’t think homeless people should be living better than me,” fumed Desmond John, 35, a window salesman who wanted to rent one of the fancy apartments. “They said it’s not for rent. It’s a shelter. I was shocked.”

Luxury brokerage firm HQ Marketing Partners started promoting the condos last summer — with the hook that buyers could custom design the units.

When the market started to tank in the fall — and his gamble on a fringe neighborhood didn’t pay off — developer Avi Shriki said he had to come up with a Plan B.

“When the market went south, we knew we had to do something different,” said Shriki, 44. “With the market being the way it is you have to be creative.”

This spring, Shriki signed a 10-year contract with the Bushwick Economic Development Group to turn the building into a homeless shelter.

Shriki wouldn’t say how much he gets paid — but he said he jumped at the chance to get people in his building.

“At least we still own the building and we are paying our mortgage, so that’s good,” said Shriki. “The outcome is not as bad as some people I know who had to surrender the whole building to the bank.”

City pays $90 a night

The city is paying Bushwick Economic Development Corp. $90 a night for each of the apartments, about $2,700 a month — a figure that also covers social services, housing help and job counseling designed to get families back on their feet.

The developers in similiarly overbuilt Long Island City should take notice — some of these rentals are way under $2700 . . .

It’s like The Warriors meets West Side Story:

A subway dance troupe turned militant on May 25 when the dancers viciously mugged a 22-year-old straphanger on the J train.

The violent attack began when the victim started conversing with the dancers after they finished an acrobatic performance near the Lorimer Street stop at around 3:40 am.

That’s when one of the perps asked the victim if he would like to “see something mesmerizing.”

The victim said yes, so the perp pulled himself into the air on the train’s metal bars and unleashed a powerful kick to the victim’s chest. Two other dancers then joined in the attack and started punching and kicking the victim in the head and body.

The victim called out to the other two dancers for help, but his pleas only convinced the other performers to join in the walloping.

Eventually, one of the perps demanded that the victim hand over his belongings.

Or you could build three New Yankee Stadiums. Or more than one Wynn Casino in Las Vegas. Or 10.8 Gravina Island Bridges. In other words, you can do a lot with $4.3 billion:

The World Trade Center Transportation Hub is near-certain to bust its $3.2 billion budget — and there’s a chance it will cost more than $4.3 billion to build, the Daily News has learned.

That’s a spike of as much as $1.1 billion from the Port Authority’s “clear-eyed” estimate of only eight months ago, a review of Hub costs obtained by The News under the Freedom of Information Act reveals.

The December report by the Federal Transit Administration says it’s 90% certain the Port Authority will blow a June 2014 deadline for opening the Santiago Calatrava-designed megaterminal.

The FTA study also estimated there’s a 50-50 chance the Hub could cost $3.8 billion, shattering its budget by $600 million — with no funding for the extra costs.

*Cost: $1.1 billion.

Now David Cone is after me about my car warranty:

With the team’s sales department lacking a closer crafty enough to persuade fans and corporations to spend $2,500 on luxury seats in the middle of a recession, the Yankees started handing the ball to the former ace.

“David Cone left a four-minute voicemail on my machine about the seats,” said a season-ticket holder on the fence about the new prices.

. . .

The biggest challenge in making the calls has been getting customers to take him serious.

“Sometimes I get a secretary, and she doesn’t believe it’s me,” he said. “They think it’s a practical joke. Usually, once they get on the phone, they recognize my voice from television and realize the call is for real.”

Location Scout: New Yankee Stadium.

I can almost make out the turnpike in the distance there:

On April 27, a plane that usually serves as the president’s plane was flying low over the New York City skyline, trailed closely by two fighter jets. It was a photo opportunity — authorized by several government officials, including Mr. Caldera — that infuriated Mr. Obama.

Earlier: What Kind Of “Photo Shoot” Involves Air Force One Flying At A Low Altitude Over New York Harbor? Publicity For A Harrison Ford Sequel?

The cost of rebuilding the I-34W Bridge in Minneapolis was $234 million. The cost of rebuilding the dinky City Island Bridge in the Bronx has now risen to $120 million:

After several years of delays, planning and community opposition, the cost of replacing the 108-year-old City Island Bridge has risen to $120 million.

Back on Aug. 20, 2003 — when Mayor Bloomberg announced plans for a new high-tech bridge “as unique as the island itself” — the cost was estimated at $32 million.

The new bridge project has yet to get started, with the latest launch date now set for next year.

“What are they building, the Bridge on the River Kwai?” groaned Councilman James Vacca (D-Bronx), whose district includes the tiny, isolated community surrounded by Long Island Sound and Eastchester Bay.

He and other critics of the city’s plans to build a “signature bridge,” with suspension cables evoking the island’s sailing past, said they’d be far happier with a cheaper remake of the current ugly-duckling span.

“We’ve been handed a bridge that we just hate,” said Barbara Dolensek, vice president of the City Island Historial Society and the Civic Association.

“They wanted something that would put their names on the map.”

When people start using etching acid to cook up debilitating illegal drugs that tear at the very fabric of society, then maybe let’s talk about giving the police wide latitude to create files on the law-abiding citizens they protect. Until then, this seems like another example* of Councilmember Peter Vallone Jr.’s insane overreach:

In an effort to further combat “scratchiti” — graffiti etched into glass — the city will soon require stores to record the names and addresses of people who buy glass-etching acid.

. . .

The purchase information — which includes the buyer’s name and address, amount of acid and date — must be kept for up to one year and made available to the police on request.

“This will have a deterrent effect if people know their identification will be kept on record,” said Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr., a Queens Democrat who is chairman of the Public Safety Committee and who negotiated with the mayor’s office to get the bill passed by the Council on Wednesday.

. . .

“We had an impasse until I went to buy Sudafed,” Mr. Vallone said. Sudafed and other cold medicines are now broadly regulated — and often kept under lock and key — because they are used as an ingredient in methamphetamine, but a license is not required to obtain the drug.

“I went to get Sudafed and they asked me for my identification,” Mr. Vallone said. “I asked how come we can’t do it for etching acid?”

*As in.