Are Alexander Portnoy’s Crusty Socks A Form Of Harrassment?

Equinox janitors are tiring of cleaning dirty laundry left behind from sexual trysts in the club’s private areas:

Several disgusted janitors are dishing dirt on the Equinox fitness center chain, claiming in a lawsuit filed yesterday that the upscale gyms are used as sleazy gay sex clubs.

The six janitors charge in the Manhattan Supreme Court suit that they are fed up with cleaning up after male gym members engage in “explicit sexual activity.”

The janitors cited five Manhattan clubs, including the chain’s flagship gym in the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle, as places where “lewd behavior” is rampant in the men’s locker rooms, showers, saunas and steam rooms.

When the maintenance men complained to management, they were “ridiculed” and subjected to “hostile” treatment, the lawsuit claims.

Equinox officials called the charges “frivolous” and deemed unfounded by separate investigation by federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

“It’s just not an issue here at Equinox,” said the chain’s Chief Operating Officer Scott Rosen.

But janitors Jaisiin Bethea, Freddy Gonzalez, Jason Guishard, Omar Harris, Alex Mass and Rodney Vanterpool say they have frequently interrupted members having sex.

The janitors, who have all resigned from Equinox, are asking for unspecified damages and arguing their civil and human rights were violated.

It’s Not So Much A Quota As It Is A Make-Work Plan For Its Enforcement Agents*

A Department of Sanitation representative tries to explain the five cigarette butt rule to a tough crowd:

When it comes to giving tickets, the city’s Department of Sanitation (DOS) does not have quotas.

That was the word from the agency’s citywide community affairs officer, Ignazio Terranova, who was in the hot seat as he responded to claims that the agency is more than eager to give out summonses, during the December meeting of the Friends United Block Association (FUBA).

Speaking to the group gathered at Temple Shaare Emeth, 6012 Farragut Road, Terranova acknowledged that DOS enforcement officers could make mistakes, but insisted that the agency is not writing tickets simply to make up a certain number and fill the city’s coffers.

“We do not have a quota, whether people choose to believe it or not,” Terranova asserted. Nonetheless, he added, “But we did not hire 56 new enforcement agents to go out and sit in a car and drink coffee all day. Their job is to find summonses, whether five or 50 in a day.”

There are perameters that must be exceeded, said Terranova, for a ticket to be written. “You’re not going to get a summons for one item,” Terranova contended. “If there’s a cap on one water bottle, you’re not going to get a summons. What constitutes a summons is five things wrong with the garbage or five things on the floor. On the sidewalk, it could be one plastic cup and four cigarette butts. That constitutes five items.”

Keeping your sidewalk and 18 inches into the gutter clean, Terranova added, is a matter of making sure it is free of debris two hours a day — from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. and from noon to 1 p.m. That is actually an improvement, he told his listeners; before a relatively recent law was passed, residents could be ticketed at any hour of the day or night, seven days a week.

*At least he didn’t call it “productivity goals”!

Good Gig If You Can Get It

It turns out that the vestigial office of the borough president will receive a raise, too:

Which of the five borough presidents doesn’t deserve a raise in Mayor Bloomberg’s opinion?

The actual answer never left the mayor’s lips yesterday — but he left little doubt that the answer is Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.

Bloomberg touched off the question game yesterday on his weekly WABC-AM show while commenting on the raises approved by the City Council for all municipal elected officials. The borough presidents are getting a $25,000 hike, bringing their salary to $160,000.

Without mentioning names, Bloomberg said, “You know there’s one that just all he does is rush to the steps of City Hall to hold press conferences — doesn’t really do anything.”

Backstory: Twenty-Five Percent, Retroactive . . . Ballsy!

How Dare It Openly Mock Those Broad, Unbroken And Ideal Sight Lines!

Everyone agrees that there is more than enough advertising in the city, some of which is actually illegal:

Patience and Fortitude, the lions that guard the New York Public Library, have beheld many things in their 95 years: numberless readers coming and going, great generals and brave troops passing by, legions of marchers celebrating St. Patrick’s Day and Pulaski Day, organized labor and gay liberation.

Now they behold two giant Scotch bottles.

In the sea of advertising that seems to have washed over construction scaffolding around New York City, the new six-story Chivas Regal billboard on 475 Fifth Avenue stands out because it dominates the landscape around the library’s colorful lawns, ample terraces and majestic staircase.

It is also illegal, the city says.

The Department of Buildings inspected the scaffolding this week and found six violations, three involving the sign, which faces Fifth Avenue and 41st Street.

(Wow, after yesterday’s howler, even more totally wacky, out-of-left-field David Dunlap prose!)

This, however, seems like a little bit of an overreaction:

The Institute of Classical Architecture is an educational organization dedicated to fostering the classical tradition, as epitomized by the library. Its office is two blocks from the library. And its president, Paul Gunther, said his blood boiled when he saw the Chivas sign.

“In open defiance of a law still without the teeth of enforcement,” he said in an e-mail message, “these glaring, scaffold-held billboards not only degrade this public — even sacred — space, but openly mock it, as if to announce, ‘Thanks for the broad, unbroken and ideal sight lines.'”

The best part: the violations only carry a $2,500 fine . . .

Twenty-Five Percent, Retroactive . . . Ballsy!

Where in the world does a legislative body vote to increase its own pay? New York City:

Contending they work hard 24/7 and deserve more money, City Council members gave themselves a $22,500 pay raise yesterday — bringing their base salary to $112,500 a year.

“I have never seen a legislative body which works harder than the New York City Council,” said Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan) as the bill passed 41 to 5.

The raises, recommended by a mayoral commission, have Mayor Bloomberg’s approval. The bill also provides fat raises for the mayor, controller, public advocate, borough presidents and district attorneys.

The raises will be retroactive to Nov. 1. The annual cumulative cost will be $1.5 million.

Good-government groups had urged tying the raises to reforms, such as eliminating committee stipends, known as lulus, that add $4,000 to $28,500 to Council members’ base pay.

The posts are also technically part-time, with 13 of the 51 members now earning outside income.

. . .

With the raise, New York’s 51 Council members will be the second-highest paid in the country – surpassed only by the $150,695 salary of Los Angeles’ 15 council members.