A Taxing Tautology

Because if you didn’t buy counterfeit goods, then we would have more police to investigate the selling of counterfeit goods:

The city is poised to unveil a campaign to educate tourists and locals alike about the harsh realities of supporting the counterfeit goods industry, which officials say costs the city more than $1 billion in lost sales taxes each year.

Beginning Monday, posters adorned with messages that relay the lesser-known perils of counterfeiting will be plastered on phone booth kiosks in areas of the city infamous for harboring peddlers of fake name-brand goods, such as Chinatown and Times Square, officials announced yesterday.

Unveiled at the Harper’s Bazaar Anticounterfeiting Summit, the posters warn shoppers about the harmful consequences of counterfeiting with messages such as “when you buy counterfeit goods, you support child labor.”

Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler announced the two-month campaign in front of a room of executives from businesses wounded by counterfeiting, an industry experts say generates upward of $650 billion a year. He said the sales tax lost to counterfeit goods would provide the city with funds to hire 10,000 new police officers, firefighters, or teachers.

“This is a problem that is a little like weeds, we need to keep pulling them out,” he said.

Except that . . . if all sales taxes only generate $4.5 billion for the city budget (see, for example, this .pdf from the city’s Independent Budget Office), is it really possible that New York City is losing $1 billion in revenue from counterfeit bags? Doesn’t that basically mean that counterfeit bags account for 25% of all sales in the entire city? (Geez, maybe New York really has become the Tijuana of the U.S.)

This is not to say that buying counterfeit goods is some kind of harmless, victimless crime — I don’t believe it is — but, again, what is the city doing carrying the water for the fashion industry? Don’t the police have better things to do? And citing “lost sales taxes” isn’t enough . . . if that were true then we should crack down on all sorts of things . . .

Which Is To Say, For All Intents And Purposes, The Mets’ Season Is Over

A reminder that it’s generally considered bad form to start stealing seats before the end of May:

A Mets fan struck out in his attempt to take a piece of Shea Stadium home with him, cops said Tuesday.

Patrick Oriani, 18, of Jersey City, was caught stealing the bottom half of a red upper-deck seat after the Mets’ 10-4 loss to the Washington Nationals on Monday night, police said. He had the souvenir wrapped in a blanket.

Oriani was charged with possession of stolen property, criminal mischief and petty larceny, police said.

Location Scout: Shea Stadium.

Not Funny . . .

. . . but some good timing on the filing of this suit:

A Bronx man named Amadou Diallo has hit the NYPD with a wrongful-arrest lawsuit, accusing crass cops of trying to frame him and taunting him because he bears the same name as the victim in the infamous “41-shot” slaying.

“Oh, you’re back from the dead,” the officers crudely joked as they cuffed Diallo, 26, who was stopped while parking his car with his wife in the passenger seat on Feb. 26, according to the suit filed yesterday in Manhattan federal court.

“The fact that plaintiff’s name is Amadou Diallo — a common name in Guinea, Africa, where both plaintiff and the victim of the ’41-shot’ slaying . . . were born — was a source of amusement, laughing and inappropriate joking amongst the officers,” the suit states.

The cops initially told Diallo his headlight was out, but it was only an excuse to search his car on a “hunch,” according to the suit, which comes amid unrest over acquittals in the recent slaying of Sean Bell by cops who fired 50 shots.

As Long As You Remember Not To Store Thousands Of Gallons Of Diesel Down There . . .

. . . it’ll be a great place to watch people pick their noses:

The city is planning a new $30 million “super high-tech” NYPD command bunker in lower Manhattan to serve as the nerve center for crime fighting, as well as emergency response to terrorist attacks and natural disasters.

The technology-intensive, 22,000-square-foot Joint Operations Command Center will be a 24/7 hub housed in an eight-story building connected to Police Headquarters at 109 Park Row, according to a city document detailing negotiations between the NYPD and architecture firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill.

The center will allow the NYPD to “coordinate with other agencies — local, state and federal — to identify, manage, and respond to crises throughout New York City,” according to the “notice of intent” document.

“The need for such a facility is imperative,” the document said.

Sources told The Post that the “state-of-the-art, sophisticated” center will have walls of high-definition video screens showing surveillance footage from a variety of places, including underneath bridges and underwater.

Cops will continuously monitor the screens to pinpoint suspicious activity or zero in on specific areas in the event of breaking crime. Criminal databases linked to the center will instantly provide responding cops with critical data.

The NYPD currently has an operations center on the eighth floor of Police Headquarters that doubles as an emergency-response center in crises, but one counterterrorism detective said, “It could certainly be more high-tech.”

God Damn The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887

Let us have our raw milk:

Brooklyn raw milk enthusiasts are crying over the loss of their supplier — a horse and buggy-driving Amish farmer from Pennsylvania.

Mark Nolt of New Line, Pa., was arrested and shut down last Friday for selling the contraband.

“Oh God. My heart is pounding. I can’t believe what a God—- police state this is,” said one Brooklyn customer who made monthly pickups of raw dairy products from Nolt that the farmer had dropped off in Manhattan by workers.

“I gave him $100 last week for a huge delivery of stuff, including raw cream that I planned on using to make cream puffs,” she said.

The Brooklyn outcry came after six Pennsylvania state troopers raided Nolt’s farm and confiscated his illegal dairy.

“They swooped in on Friday morning like a bunch of Vikings, handcuffed me and stole $30,000 worth of my milk, cheese and butter,” Nolt told the Daily News.

Nolt is a devout Mennonite who sells raw dairy products at his farm and has them transported by truck to customers in Delaware and across New York City, where the raw goods are illegal.

It is a violation of federal law to transport raw milk across state lines with the intent to sell it for consumption. Nolt was arrested for not having a permit to sell the goods in Pennsylvania, where they are allowed.

He said he was working on the farm with his wife and 10 children when the agents cuffed him on charges of selling the contraband to an undercover officer.

“The government doesn’t have the right to dictate what I eat, and never will,” said an unrepentant Nolt.

Around the city, more and more parents are signing up to find out where dropoff points are to pick up raw milk they have bought online.

To get around the law, no money changes hands. Milk pickup spots are posted in Williamsburg, Queens and neighborhoods in Manhattan — where a milk truck waits.

And who killed the raw milk trade? You did!