Speaker 1: Cassy.
Speaker 2: This is the seventy seven WABC Mini Cast. Now we
Speaker 2: are going to our featured guests here today, a person
Speaker 2: that I by the way, she's got great energy. I
Speaker 2: love her energy. You know, she's she's really energetic, and
Speaker 2: you know what, and she came to WABC Radio, which
Speaker 2: is cool. You know, she's got cohona is because you
Speaker 2: know what, most Democrats don't want to come to WABC
Speaker 2: radio because they think we are going to attack them.
Speaker 2: I don't ever attack my guests. I have conversations with
Speaker 2: them and I let them be heard because if they're heard,
Speaker 2: they can get their point across. And for our million
Speaker 2: plus listeners, I want you to know that Emily Gallagher
Speaker 2: is a wonderful assembly woman and she's from Brooklyn. You know,
Speaker 2: ladies and gentlemen or whatever your pronouns are here assembly
Speaker 2: Woman Emily Gallagher. Assembly Woman Gallagher. She represents Green Points,
Speaker 2: she represents Williamsburg. Those are the communities that are really throbbing.
Speaker 2: So congratulations, and you're doing a great job there, Emily,
Speaker 2: because the streets are pretty clean. You know, you've got
Speaker 2: a whole elected officials responsible when their streets are dirty.
Speaker 2: But your streets are clean. I gotta give you that.
Speaker 2: But listen, Emily, you said something today. I want to
Speaker 2: I want to play play the videotape here, Come on, ahs.
Speaker 3: What we saw were kinds of poverty. People who are
Speaker 3: stealing things like toothpaste, people who are stealing things like
Speaker 3: you know so. And that means if you're stealing those things,
Speaker 3: you need them. And we are choosing to protect billion
Speaker 3: dollar companies like CBS and Walgreens over the people who
Speaker 3: are struggling to get by.
Speaker 2: Well, Emily Gallagher got national attention. Man, she really tweeked
Speaker 2: what she said. And I like it because you know
Speaker 2: what she said, it raw, okay, and she said it
Speaker 2: how she felt. But I have a simple question, Emily,
Speaker 2: is shoplifting right or wrong?
Speaker 3: Look, my point is that we are investing in a
Speaker 3: system with our taxpayer dollars that doesn't work, and that
Speaker 3: is putting people in prison or jail for low level
Speaker 3: crime and even prosecuting them running them through the system.
Speaker 3: There's been so much research on this that shows that
Speaker 3: this doesn't actually decrease crime, it keeps it about the same,
Speaker 3: and actually it really worsens outcomes for peopleeople who end
Speaker 3: up in the system from shoplifting. So I think my
Speaker 3: criticism here is that folks who are shoplifting out of poverty,
Speaker 3: out of desperation, they should be treated with some different
Speaker 3: kinds of interventions than prison and jail. And we actually
Speaker 3: have a lot of data that backs that up. So
Speaker 3: I'm fighting to change the way that we handle this,
Speaker 3: not to say that shoplifting is something that we should encourage,
Speaker 3: but rather that shoplifting is a symptom and there are
Speaker 3: different ways to cure it.
Speaker 2: Okay, you know, Emily, I like you had a program
Speaker 2: at Rikers Island many years ago, eighty nine to ninety
Speaker 2: and ninety one, three years where I invested my own
Speaker 2: money about one hundred thousand dollars a year back then
Speaker 2: to allow non violent inmates to learn of skills so
Speaker 2: that they wouldn't go back to jail. Okay, but they
Speaker 2: were already in jail, and they were in jail probably
Speaker 2: for things like shoplifting, looting, and all of these things.
Speaker 2: But my question to you was is shoplifting right or wrong?
Speaker 2: There's a yes or no question.
Speaker 3: I would say shoplifting is not right.
Speaker 2: It's not okay, good, you know what you see guys,
Speaker 2: That's why you've got to give people an opportunity to
Speaker 2: be heard. Right. Emily doesn't believe that shoplifting is a
Speaker 2: good thing. So you know, she said shoplifting is no
Speaker 2: So Emily, you say, some people still out of necessity.
Speaker 2: But everybody needs something. We all need something. If I
Speaker 2: need something, I'm not going to go into CVS or
Speaker 2: Walmart or any and just take it because I want it.
Speaker 2: You know, there's got to be some What kind of
Speaker 2: penalty would you if you were the mayor of this city,
Speaker 2: if you were the police commission, if you were the
Speaker 2: attorney general, or if you were the a or the
Speaker 2: district attorney? What solutions? What punishment would you give to
Speaker 2: someone that goes into a bodega? I represent bodegas, yeah,
Speaker 2: I represent cab drivers. Yeah. And you know a lot
Speaker 2: of people get in a cab and they get out
Speaker 2: the car at a red light and they run and
Speaker 2: they don't pay the fare. So cab drivers get stuck
Speaker 2: losing fifty dollars, ride seventy dollars, ride thirty dollars. It
Speaker 2: is devastating to them. Mentor bodega, it's even more devastating
Speaker 2: because these are small businesses that pay a lot of rent.
Speaker 2: A lot of taxes, a lot of things. What would
Speaker 2: you tell these small businesses, because let's say listen CBS
Speaker 2: and Walmart, it's not acceptable for I don't think people
Speaker 2: to loot them because then they leave the city and
Speaker 2: a lot of them have closed. That's why you see
Speaker 2: a lot of empty stores in New York because you're
Speaker 2: in COVID, and even past COVID, a lot of looting
Speaker 2: took place and these businesses had to shut down, right,
Speaker 2: So who are the losers? Communities lost, right because now
Speaker 2: we don't have a place where to going shop. But
Speaker 2: to the small businesses, what would you tell Ravametz Rodriguez,
Speaker 2: for example, Hey, somebody came in here looted you. They
Speaker 2: robbed you for toothpaste and toilet paper and stuff, And
Speaker 2: what kind of penalty would you recommend for someone like this?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I really think that there's a big
Speaker 3: difference between the crimes that happened at like a CVS
Speaker 3: or Walgreens billion dollar companies that actually are doing a
Speaker 3: lot of leveraging that are actually impacting their own crime rates.
Speaker 3: Like there were studies in twenty twenty three that really
Speaker 3: dug into this retail theft story and what they found
Speaker 3: was that the main cause was that they had really
Speaker 3: got rid of a lot of their employees and they
Speaker 3: had all those self checkouts things like that, and actually,
Speaker 3: and in a shareholder call, the CEO of Walgreens said, like,
Speaker 3: maybe we have actually exaggerated our losses. Losses at those
Speaker 3: big companies to shoplifting are actually zero point zero seven percent.
Speaker 3: Most of what they experience is like over buying or fraud.
Speaker 3: It's a totally different kind of thing. I am for
Speaker 3: small businesses because I think those are the ones that
Speaker 3: really provide community support. Those are the kind of guys
Speaker 3: like I had a bodega across the street from my
Speaker 3: house for ten years where they were like family to me,
Speaker 3: Like hold your thought, yes.
Speaker 1: Hold your thought, because you've got to get a commercial
Speaker 1: break and we'll be right back. Okay, okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: you all know me, but listen, I just want for
Speaker 1: those of you that are just tuning in now, okay,
Speaker 1: that tuned in late.
Speaker 2: You know, there's no excuses for being late to my show. Okay,
Speaker 2: no excuses for that. But for those of you that
Speaker 2: are late, I have here the great Emily Gallagher Assemblymen
Speaker 2: from Williamsburg and Greenpoint, and you know, those neighborhoods are kicking.
Speaker 2: They are clean, they are great, they are nice. So
Speaker 2: she's doing she's doing her part, okay, And I'm sure
Speaker 2: she's uh, she's doing the best that she can. But
Speaker 2: she said something very controversial this week, man, and it
Speaker 2: got her all over. She wasn't even on Fox News.
Speaker 2: She was on Fox News. Man, you made it to
Speaker 2: the big league.
Speaker 3: It was really impressive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and listen, although she has said here on this
Speaker 2: show that she does not agree with chopliftings. She thinks
Speaker 2: it's wrong, she also believes that there's, uh has to
Speaker 2: be other other things other than sending these people to jail. Okay,
Speaker 2: So Emily continue. You said you had a bodega in
Speaker 2: front of your house, right.
Speaker 3: I think everybody in New York City has has like
Speaker 3: a relationship with the bodega near their house. And and
Speaker 3: one thing that I know is true about small businesses
Speaker 3: is that they usually have community connections. They know the
Speaker 3: people in their neighborhood, They know who needs a little help,
Speaker 3: and they usually work it out with them. Like I
Speaker 3: know that the guys that had the Delhi across the
Speaker 3: street from mine, and they've been so successful. They've had
Speaker 3: two more delis. One of them even went in and
Speaker 3: started his own HVAC company. They they would help people
Speaker 3: who needed a little help. So I know that there
Speaker 3: were people that would go in there and they would
Speaker 3: say like, hey, man, like I don't get paid till
Speaker 3: next week, and they'd be like, hey, you take what
Speaker 3: you need and come back next week. And because they
Speaker 3: had a relationship that was able to sustain like that
Speaker 3: good connection. And what I'm seeing in my district is that,
Speaker 3: you know, a lot of the buildings are being bought
Speaker 3: up by private equity and the rents are becoming so
Speaker 3: insane that these little mom and pop shops are not
Speaker 3: able to survive. And I actually have a bill that
Speaker 3: I've introduced called the Small Business Rent Stabilization Act, which
Speaker 3: would allow for there to be some more conversation about
Speaker 3: what mom and pop isessays should be paying in rent,
Speaker 3: because I think they're a critical part of public safety.
Speaker 3: And I think this is a big part of why
Speaker 3: people end up shoplifting at these big stores because there's
Speaker 3: no relationships there, because they're not building relationships because they're
Speaker 3: not having employees anymore. They're having these automatics of checkout
Speaker 3: kind of story.
Speaker 2: But Emily, you have to, I'm going to give you
Speaker 2: a suggestion. O. My father owned the bodega. I'm a
Speaker 2: small business owner. I've worked very hard, you know, my
Speaker 2: entire life in New York City to get where I'm
Speaker 2: at today. But one of the things, and one of
Speaker 2: the reasons why rents are so high, and retail rents
Speaker 2: are high, is because of all the taxes that these
Speaker 2: buildings have to pay the city and the state and
Speaker 2: everyone else. So if the taxes were lowered, then the
Speaker 2: landlords wouldn't have to charge so much rent. See. So
Speaker 2: it's like, if I have a small building with five apartments,
Speaker 2: and my taxes are one hundred thousand dollars a year,
Speaker 2: that's what nine thousand dollars a month just in taxes
Speaker 2: for the building. That's before I start collecting rent from
Speaker 2: the four tenants that I have, Right, it's one hundred
Speaker 2: grand a year. So if I had if my rent,
Speaker 2: if my taxes were twenty five thousand, that means that
Speaker 2: the savings that I get there I can pass along
Speaker 2: to the tenants. So it's not as simple as saying,
Speaker 2: you know what, these funds buy these properties, these buildings
Speaker 2: and they're charging an arm and a leg. You've got
Speaker 2: to look at the reason why. Okay, if you have boilers,
Speaker 2: oil is going through the roof. Roofers cost a lot
Speaker 2: of money. Maintaining a building costs a lot of money,
Speaker 2: so all that has to be part of the rent.
Speaker 2: So if your total cost for that building is too
Speaker 2: undred thousand dollars a year, that means that every apartment
Speaker 2: their rent is going to be about four thousand dollars
Speaker 2: a year, just so that you can break even. So
Speaker 2: there's you know, as a legislator, I would love to
Speaker 2: for you to do an analysis where you really understand
Speaker 2: why the rent is so high. You know, I've asked
Speaker 2: Mayor Mondami, why don't you lower the rents, I mean
Speaker 2: the taxes, so that then the landlords could give credit
Speaker 2: for the taxes that you've lowered to the tenants. That's
Speaker 2: a lot easier than telling people rent control, which I'm
Speaker 2: sure he's going to lose in court because a lot
Speaker 2: of these I have building owners that say, Fernando, I'm
Speaker 2: breaking even at the end of the month. Now I'm
Speaker 2: going to lose money at the end of the month.
Speaker 2: Wealthy people can do right, can write off right, so
Speaker 2: they write it off in their taxes, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: But not the small mom and pop guy.
Speaker 3: Well, well, and the research for this bill, what we've
Speaker 3: really found is that a lot of these buildings have
Speaker 3: been overleveraged by international private equity, and so it's not
Speaker 3: even like a person that you know anymore that you're
Speaker 3: working with. And I've seen many small businesses that have
Speaker 3: come to me and said that they're having all of
Speaker 3: the property taxes passed on to them. So the goal
Speaker 3: of this bill is to actually have a discussion about
Speaker 3: it with all of the stakeholders. So there would be
Speaker 3: landlords involved, there would be small business owners involved, and
Speaker 3: there would be experts in things like you know, insurance,
Speaker 3: in like what the roofing would cost, all of that
Speaker 3: sort of thing, so we can have a conversation and
Speaker 3: we can make sure that small businesses are able to thrive,
Speaker 3: so that we have those community eyes on the ground,
Speaker 3: because I'm sure you've seen in some of these neighborhoods
Speaker 3: there's almost all vacant storefronts now and it's being told
Speaker 3: to us that this is because of shoplifting things like that.
Speaker 3: When there was a study done in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3: What they found with Tart was that they actually were
Speaker 3: just leaving places where their sales weren't that high. I
Speaker 3: had nothing to do as shoplifting. And so I think
Speaker 3: that we're being told some things that just are not
Speaker 3: factually true. And it's really important to think about, like
Speaker 3: how an anecdote tells us what is possible, but data
Speaker 3: tells us what's probable. And that's why I really try
Speaker 3: to be a data driven legislator. I really try to
Speaker 3: get to the core of the issue, and I'm really
Speaker 3: looking for the answers that will allow people to have work, entrepreneurship,
Speaker 3: individual responsibility, and reward success, you know. But we have
Speaker 3: to do that without exploiting people. And I think that's
Speaker 3: really where where we're seeing a problem right now.
Speaker 2: Listen, representing bodega owners, I know the core of their problem.
Speaker 2: Yeare of their problems are high rent?
Speaker 3: Why exactly?
Speaker 2: But a lot of them own the properties they're in.
Speaker 2: So interesting, Yes, But what they're saying is the reason
Speaker 2: why we have to sell products at a certain price
Speaker 2: is because not only is our rent high, the taxes
Speaker 2: are extremely high. And I think that that's a city situation.
Speaker 2: If you want to create affordability. You have to look
Speaker 2: at how much are you taking, how much is the city?
Speaker 3: How much is that I'm going to bring it back
Speaker 3: to what you've been saying, because my belief is if
Speaker 3: we are taking taxes, they should be used in a
Speaker 3: way that is provably successful. And that is why I'm
Speaker 3: speaking out against using jail as an answer for when shops.
Speaker 2: I asked you that question, what kind of punishment?
Speaker 3: What I want to tell you is that one night,
Speaker 3: one night in Rikers is one year in Rikers for
Speaker 3: one person is five hundred thousand dollars of our tax
Speaker 3: payer money. I don't think that's right. I think we
Speaker 3: should be spending that on things that are proven successful,
Speaker 3: like housing. If we have paid for housing with that
Speaker 3: five hundred thousand dollars, we will get twenty people housed
Speaker 3: for the price of one person. And in jail.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know what, back in ninety and eighty nine,
Speaker 2: ninety ninety one, it was fifty eight thousand. I still
Speaker 2: remember the number because I went to Mayor Dinkins at
Speaker 2: the time and I said, you know what, I'm saving
Speaker 2: the city fifty eight thousand dollars per inmate. Huh, that
Speaker 2: doesn't come back to jail. But the truth theory is, listen,
Speaker 2: where do you draw the line. My bodegas are being loaded, Uh,
Speaker 2: small businesses are being loaded. They need to these people
Speaker 2: need to know that there's consequences. It's not just program that.
Speaker 2: It's not just go away.
Speaker 3: Right. So I think the program is one of these.
Speaker 3: There was a program that they did in a twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two study, uh, and they found a fifty three
Speaker 3: percent reduction in the likelihood of a new criminal complaint.
Speaker 3: And they actually found that the crime rate, crime rate
Speaker 3: went down and recidivism was only at four percent with
Speaker 3: this program. Right. So we can create programs like that,
Speaker 3: and I've been talking to the administration about that. We
Speaker 3: want to see different kinds of programs that have people
Speaker 3: come in and have classes, they do a needs assessment,
Speaker 3: they say like what are you needing? Like you can't
Speaker 3: pay for hygienic products with food stamps, Emily.
Speaker 2: We are running out of time. We would I'm going
Speaker 2: to have you back, But I just want you to
Speaker 2: know that as a legislator, do what other legislators don't do.
Speaker 2: Don't look at the rich and say, Okay, they have
Speaker 2: enough and they're charging more. Look at what they have,
Speaker 2: what the expenses are, and why they are charging what
Speaker 2: they're charging per apartment. So if you see a small
Speaker 2: building and you people are paying five thousand dollars of
Speaker 2: rent in your district, these are people that took that building,
Speaker 2: renovated the building, borrowed money to do that, so now
Speaker 2: they have to pay the bank off. Then the taxes
Speaker 2: on that building is extremely high, so you've got to
Speaker 2: look at and the oil is very high, and the
Speaker 2: maintenance of the building. Once you take all of the expenses,
Speaker 2: now you see what they're charging. If the landlord is
Speaker 2: making a ton of money on top of that, okay,
Speaker 2: you know what, come on, guys. But if they're just
Speaker 2: breaking even or making a little money, hey, you've got
Speaker 2: to you gotta look at it. You've got to look
Speaker 2: at their point of view as well. But it was
Speaker 2: really nice having you, Emily.
Speaker 3: Nice nice being here. You know, I'm a systems thinker,
Speaker 3: so I'm always looking at what is the best way
Speaker 3: that we can spend our money, and I think that
Speaker 3: you know, that is the kind of solutions that I'm
Speaker 3: trying to You will make so.
Speaker 2: Much sense when you go to Albany and you tell
Speaker 2: the governor and you tell you the legislators. Hey guys,
Speaker 2: let's not just fight for one sector. Let's look at both.
Speaker 2: Let's discuss, let's analyze, let's figure this out for the
Speaker 2: which is what I always say, Let's figure this out.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Ellie, you