Economic Indicators, Too

Not just for European tourists, the automatic tip is a sign of the economic times:

New York City eateries have begun tacking on automatic gratuities to meal checks, making up for the economic downturn by socking the wallets of unsuspecting customers.

The Post last week found a dozen restaurants foisting tips on diners — sometimes as high as 20 percent and regardless of party size and without noting the policy on the menu, all in violation of consumer laws.

“I felt cheated and taken advantage of,” said Dazi Chen, who discovered a 20 percent tip stealthily added to his check at Midtown’s Bombay Eats, where he dined with a friend.

“They’re trying to get double gratuity,” fumed Chen, 31.

When he complained to a waitress, he was told the tip is “programmed” into the cash register and could not be refunded.

Rebecca Christian, a resourcing manager from Manchester, England, who visited the swanky River Café in Brooklyn over the holidays with her boyfriend, said she was hit with an unannounced 15 percent gratuity on a $400 check.

In fact, the menu said, “Gratuity and sales tax not included.”

Despite being “absolutely shocked,” she said, she paid the bill because she thought it was an American custom.

The eatery denies adding on secret gratuities.

“It’s very, very rarely that we would do that, and if we do, we always inform the guest that it has been added to the calculation, both on the check and verbally,” the maitre d’ told The Post.

OK, I’m Convinced: Kill The Stimulus Bill

I’m pretty sure this is a sort of A Modest Proposal-like device but I’m not entirely sure:

Those requiring government assistance should be offered a chance to bid for their hunk of pork. We should not reject offhand projects that might previously have been deemed unworthy.

In the case of Atlantic Yards, for instance, critics might continue to argue over the larger project’s aesthetics and suitability for a site bridging Prospect Heights and Fort Greene, but complaints over several hundred million dollars in government subsidies are suddenly dated when a trillion dollars is sitting there for the taking. As long as Washington is doling out the gravy, Brooklyn needs to have its plate under the ladle.

The most problematic, oversized components of Bruce Ratner’s proposal for Atlantic Yards should not be built, no matter how much federal money is being thrown around. But it would be appropriate to use federal stimulus cash to jumpstart the part of the original Atlantic Yards plan that makes the most sense: the basketball arena at the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues.

Yes, The Brooklyn Paper has repeatedly argued that the financing scheme for the Nets arena was unfair to New York taxpayers. But if Washington money is channeled our way, that argument over subsidies to the project would be muted.

Bottom line: If we don’t get the money, Peoria will.

Just as we need to move past finger-pointing and blame-throwing in Washington and on Wall Street, we need to look forward in Brooklyn and remove vitriol from all sides of the Atlantic Yards discussion.

Constructing the arena and bringing the New Jersey Nets to Brooklyn would quickly create construction jobs, boost the commercial district along Flatbush Avenue, and restore the spirit of optimism that built Brooklyn.

Location Scout: Atlantic Yards.

The Achievement Gap

New York City sucks and it’s getting worse:

A New Yorker would have to make $123,322 a year to have the same standard of living as someone making $50,000 in Houston.

And with findings like this, it won’t be long before we have to seriously contend with the crushing burden of one million new residents, which underpins the mayor’s ambitious 2030 plan for the city. Or not:

Researchers said the combination of skyrocketing costs, stagnant wages and a deteriorating quality of life forced hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to flee the city for cheaper areas during the boom years from 2002 to 2006.

The report found that more New Yorkers left each year during the boom than left during the dark days of the early 1990s.

From The Wikipedia Entry On Fenugreek Seeds: “In The United States, Where Maple Syrup Is Popular, Fenugreek Is Widely Used As A Substitute For Maple Syrup Flavoring”

I thought the mayor was going to say that it was the stench of Adam Gopnik’s treacly prose periodically wafting over the city, but apparently that’s not the case:

The mayor repeatedly mispronounced the name of the word fenugreek as “fenugeek.” According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health, fenugreek has historically been used for a variety of health conditions, including menopausal symptoms and digestive problems, and for inducing childbirth. Today, fenugreek is used to treat diabetes and loss of appetite, to stimulate milk production in breastfeeding women, and to treat inflammation of the skin.

Last month, the mayor said, inspectors from the city’s Department of Environmental Protection captured four odor samples, three in Manhattan and one west of the George Washington Bridge.

The substance was a kind of ester, the mayor said, in this case a harmless compound created by interaction of an alcohol and an acid. Its maker: Frutarom, an industrial company based in Haifa, Israel, that processes fenugreek seeds to make fragrances at the plant in North Bergen, in Hudson County.

“The mystery of the maple-syrup mist has finally been solved,” the mayor said. “Frutarom does not appear to be breaking any rules and New Jersey’s D.E.P. will confirm that as well.” On future days when the plant processes seeds, a similar odor will recur.

“It just happens to be one of the aromas we will have to live with,” the mayor said.

The history of the smell: The Sweet Smell Of Maple Doughnuts, Or Perhaps Eggos, Smell Returns? Mysterious Smell Comes, Goes And Leaves No Clues In Its Wake, Sweet Syrupy Smell, I Wish I Knew How To Quit You!.

Posted: February 5th, 2009 | Filed under: Need To Know

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You Can Have Drink Specials At Bars And We’ll Take Cheaper Haircuts . . .

. . . and less expensive dry cleaning service . . . then let’s call it even:

For women across New York City and beyond, it basically amounts to being taken to the cleaners. Women’s shirts often cost much more to launder than men’s, even if they are smaller and made of the same cloth.

Many women grudgingly accept the higher prices, much as they accept the perennial lack of pockets in their pants and the lengthier lines outside their restrooms. But not Janet Floyd, a 44-year-old mother, community volunteer and newly minted missionary for gender equality in the wash place.

Ms. Floyd’s crusade began in November, when, she said, she and her husband brought their nearly identical blue Brooks Brothers oxfords to be laundered at Best Cleaners in Chelsea. The shirts came back clean, but Ms. Floyd discovered that hers cost $8.75, his $7.

“We had the same shirts — I paid more and his was larger,” recalled Ms. Floyd, who wears a size 4 petite (her husband, Joe, wears a 15.5-inch neck and 33-inch sleeve). “That’s what was so infuriating.”