Comments by monty39

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/migrant-roughed-up-by-curtis-sliwas-guardian-angels-during-hannity-interview-is-actually-a-new-yorker-police-say/

I heard the VIP is open again but I have not been over there to substantiate what I was told.

Seeking asylum and work, migrants bused out of New York City are met with hostility 5/24 Mohamed is one of about 400 international migrants the city has been putting up in a small number of hotels in other parts of the state this month to relieve pressure on its overtaxed homeless shelter system. Some of the relocated asylum seekers say they now regret leaving the city, pointing to a lack of job opportunities and resources to pursue their asylum cases, as well as a hostile reception. “It’s better in New York City,” Mohamed said. “There, no one cursed at you and said, ‘Go back to your country.’” Republican county officials there have accused New York City of dumping its problems on its neighbors, while insinuating that the new arrivals pose a danger. Meanwhile, some who joined the initial wave of relocations have since returned to New York City’s shelter system. Those who don’t have money for transportation, such as Mohamed, say they are stuck. “It’s like the desert,” lamented Mohamed, who studied law and taught himself English in Mauritania. “There’s nothing here for us.” Some asylum seekers described a sense of being lured upstate on false pretenses, saying outreach workers described local economies in need of off-the-books migrant labor. Instead they have suffered a stream of harassment. “There are people driving by pretty constantly in big pickup trucks telling them to go back to their country,” said Amy Belsher, an attorney for the New York Civil Liberties Union, describing a phenomenon also witnessed by an AP journalist.

NYC school uses crossing guard, food workers, 5-year-olds to translate for migrant kids May 23, 2023 A Queens school became so overwhelmed with migrant kids last week that it grabbed a Spanish-speaking crossing guard off the street, cafeteria workers from the food line — and even 5-year-old students — to help translate in classrooms, staffers and parents told The Post on Tuesday. Administrators at PS 31 in Bayside were given mere hours to prepare for the nearly four dozen, newly arrived migrant children who came to the school over two days to be enrolled, the sources said. The influx was too much for the school, which has only two “English as a New Language’’ teachers on staff. American students, after being pawns of the teacher's unions for two years, now must forgo their education once again so that all education resources are directed to addressing the needs of illegal immigrants. Thank the Democrats for throwing American's children under the bus.....and then driving over them!

NYC not providing showers at migrant ‘respite centers,’ raising right-to-shelter concerns from advocates New York Daily News May 23, 2023 several migrants housed at one of the sites, a vacant office building on W. 31st St. in Manhattan, told the Daily News on Tuesday they’ve been there for nearly a week, sleeping on narrow cots. Among them were Victor and Marimar, a Venezuelan couple who said they have been sheltered at the W. 31st St. location since they arrived in New York five days ago. The couple, who only gave their first names, said there are no showers on site, and that they have not been able to properly wash for nearly two weeks, as they were on the road for six days before getting to New York from the Texas border. The couple said most asylum seekers staying at the facility, which used to house Touro College, wash themselves by filling up bottles from bathroom sinks and pouring the water over their heads. Leudel, another Venezuelan migrant staying at the ex-Touro site, said he hasn’t showered for weeks or gotten any assurances from the city about when he’ll be moved to another shelter. “I haven’t been able to shower in a month, from the detention center, bus and this place,” he said in Spanish, referencing his journey to New York. “I don’t know when I will leave here.” Goldfein said the lack of shower access at the other respite centers is “very concerning” from a legal perspective.

5/22 , grasp of data. Adams wildly said last week that “almost half of all hotel rooms now are taken up by asylum seekers.” This wasn’t a momentary lapse: The mayor expounded on this theme at length. “New York City is the hotel capital,” he noted. “Almost 50% of those hotel rooms are taken up by migrant asylum seekers that we are paying for. So instead of monies coming from people who are visiting us and spending . . . we are using those hotels.” Not true: Even the Times figured out this was “inaccurate.” The hotel union had to correct the mayor, saying that of the city’s 125,000 to 130,000 hotel rooms, migrants are in about 3,500 of them. Which raises a question: The city signed a contract last year for 5,000 hotel rooms for a year. If it hasn’t needed all 5,000, why is it signing a three-year deal for another 1,025 rooms at the Roosevelt, a deal whose terms still aren’t public? Adams needs to inform New Yorkers with a dashboard of data: How many families and how many single adults are in migrant shelters? How many are in asylum hotels, how many in congregate asylum shelters and how many in traditional homeless shelters? Which hotels, and how many rooms each? When did each asylum seeker apply for asylum, and when is his or her court date? What’s the average length of stay?

No Room at the Inn—Except in New York! Nicole Gelinas This week, after a pandemic hiatus of more than three years, one of New York’s marquee hotels will reopen its 1,025 rooms to guests. The Roosevelt Hotel, celebrating its centennial next year, has earned a place in Gotham history. The stately mid-rise limestone and brick edifice—designed as part of Grand Central Terminal’s “Terminal City” complex, just steps from the North American long-distance train hub—was home to Guy Lombardo’s band for three decades, hosted New York governor Thomas Dewey when he prematurely declared victory over Harry Truman in the 1948 presidential election, and served as Mayor-elect John Lindsay’s victory stage and transition headquarters in 1965. Though worn with age, the hotel, before the pandemic, garnered praise from travelers: a quiet, reliable property with a low-three-figures-a-night price tag. The reopening should be a sign of New York’s post-2020 progress—except that it’s opening not to paying customers but to migrants crossing the southwest U.S. border and making their way north in search of New York City’s free, no-questions-asked shelter. So instead of being a symbol of New York’s post-pandemic resurgence, the reopening has become a sign of Mayor Eric Adams’s failure to lead on his administration’s biggest emergency to date. Adams didn’t create the border crisis, of course. Under President Biden, attempted and successful border crossings are up significantly compared with the Trump administration. During the five months of fiscal year 2020 that occurred before Trump imposed pandemic restrictions—from October 2019 to February 2020—“encounters” between border-patrol agents and migrants ran slightly above 200,000; during the similar five months of the current fiscal year, they topped 1 million. Most such encounters have ended in a release into the United States; 1.8 million people released in the country in the past two years await court dates for asylum claim, some scheduled as late as 2035. Others cross entirely undetected and unrecorded. Adams expects that the number of migrants will “rapidly accelerate” as Biden stops removing some migrants under a public-health rule that Trump invoked. But Adams is making the crisis worse for New York. Though he blames Texas governor Greg Abbott and other Republicans for offering migrants free bus transport to New York, he ignores the reason that migrants find such transport so attractive. New York City is unique in the country, and indeed in the Western world, in that it guarantees all comers shelter: immediately, no questions asked. The media often incorrectly report that this shelter system is an ironclad “right,” imposed by a court under a reading of the state constitution’s obligation to provide “aid, care, and support of the needy.” It is not. In 1981, in response to a lawsuit by homeless advocates, the city voluntarily agreed to provide universal shelter, first for men, and two years later for women and families, before the state’s top court ever issued a ruling. One presumes that the city settled the case to avoid the inflexibility that a final high court ruling would have created. But in the current crisis, the city has done nothing with the flexibility that it retains. More than two years into the Biden-era migration crisis, Adams has not challenged the shelter-eligibility rules. It would be reasonable for the city to restrict eligibility to people, of any citizenship or nationality, who have had a fixed address in New York City at some point during the past five years. Such a restriction would face a court challenge by migrant advocates, but so be it. The mayor could also restrict shelter eligibility to migrants already approved for asylum, putting pressure on the federal government to process applicants quickly. Most migrants, to judge from their own words, appear not to be refugees from war or from persecution, but people fleeing dysfunctional governments and economies. Even under an expansive reading of New York’s shelter system, the mayor has no obligation to host migrants in private rooms. He could offer them communal shelter only. And he is doing some of that: the latest plan is to convert at least seven public school gyms into shelters. But Adams has vacillated on such plans, opening one tent city last year only to abruptly close it. That’s partly because gyms and other large-scale spaces are not appropriate for long-term stays; they’re not equipped with adequate bathrooms and showers, and previous experiences of using such spaces as long-term shelters, even when well-managed, have proven untenable. Gyms are emergency waystations—but to where? So Adams has spent the past year converting New York hotel rooms into migrant shelters. Last year, the mayor inked an “emergency” no-bid deal with the city’s Hotel Association: 5,000 rooms for a year, at $130 a night. These 122 hotels included upper-end Manhattan tourist properties, including the world’s tallest Holiday Inn, in Lower Manhattan, and Midtown’s Stewart Hotel, where, until recently, tourists “gather[ed] under high ceilings and flow[ed] between its New York-inspired lobby, stunning ballroom, designer event space and spacious suites.” Now, Adams is signing the biggest hotel deal of all: a $225 million, three-year deal for all of the Roosevelt’s rooms, working out to $205 a night. According to the Pakistani government, which owns the Roosevelt, the deal even includes a payout for hotel union workers laid off during the pandemic. Beyond the obvious fact that no-bid emergency deals breed corruption, using prime hotel properties for shelter is a bad idea for several reasons. First, the city is crowding out the tourists whom it needs to entice back to New York. The city has only 120,000 hotel rooms. Taking several thousand—at least—off the market significantly reduces supply, raising prices for paying guests at other properties. Reserving hotel rooms for migrants thus deters tourism, and it harms the recovery of nearby restaurants, retail stores, and entertainment offerings. That’s particularly true in Midtown Manhattan, where only half of office workers are regularly back at their desks. Five years ago, the area around the Roosevelt Hotel was peopled by its business and leisure travelers, all eating and shopping nearby. Before the city swooped in with its deal, the Pakistani government was planning a partial reopening of the property to paying guests. The Stewart, too, tells visitors to its website to contact its corporate offices if they have had their reservations suddenly cancelled, implying that it, too, was planning to reopen before the city offered a good deal: guaranteed 100 percent occupancy by guests who can’t grumble about the service. The city isn’t just distorting its own hotel market with these mass-scale room buys; it’s also reserving rooms in upstate New York, upending everything from weddings to baby showers as hotels cancel existing reservations for paying guests. The impact on New York City itself goes beyond the economic. Newcomers to the city and to the country will naturally behave as they see others behaving around them. So it’s not good that, as New York welcomes potentially hundreds of thousands of unassimilated newcomers, it has lowered its standards of public behavior. People will smoke pot in public if they see other people doing it. Similarly, migrants with no legal source of cash will be sorely tempted to engage in theft, as they learn quickly that nonviolent retail shoplifting faces no real penalty. Second, New York confronts a direct fiscal impact. The city isn’t just paying hundreds of millions of dollars for hotel rooms; it is sacrificing hotel taxes from those rooms. Assuming 80 percent occupancy of 6,000 hotel rooms at $200 a night over three years, lost taxes could amount to more than $60 million. And the city’s pledge to pay enough to hotels sheltering migrants to support union jobs will add even more to this tab. As the head of the hotel union, Rich Maroko, said last week, “This agreement … allows an iconic hotel to reopen its doors,” and “hundreds of union workers to return to their good-paying jobs.” But the only reason the Roosevelt and other union hotels could support middle-class pay was the deep pockets of New York’s tourists and business travelers. The city has bizarrely cut out the private-sector hotel customer, as if the outside party providing the actual revenues to fund social services were just an inconvenient middleman. Third, what is the exit strategy? Irregular migrants are not allowed legally to work—though many will work anyway, with employers exploiting their status to pay them less than minimum wage—and they are looking at years of waiting as the federal government processes their asylum claims. Many claimants, even most, will be rejected. It’s one thing for New York to reserve hotel rooms after a finite disaster, such as a hurricane, so that temporarily displaced residents have a place to stay while they repair their homes. It’s another thing to sacrifice centrally located lodging into an open-ended “emergency” comprised of people who aren’t staying there temporarily, but permanently, because they have no local ties to rebuild. Fourth, the city will pay a cost in diversion of scarce resources for social programs. Migrants now account for 37,500, or nearly half, of the city’s 79,762 homeless-shelter residents, itself a record. But New York cannot adequately care for its indigenous homeless and distressed. Jordan Neely, the 30-year-old man killed in a subway chokehold two weeks ago after behaving menacingly on the train, was on the city’s Top 50 list of people desperately in need of intense services. On the train, he reportedly begged for food and water. Why wasn’t he in a private hotel room, with round-the-clock “welcoming” care? Adams’s opening of prime properties as migrant shelter creates a final problem: self-perpetuation. The mayor says over and over that he wants to discourage migrants from coming to New York. He has said “there’s no room at the inn” and that the city “is being destroyed by the migrant crisis.” This Tuesday, he said that New York “is being overwhelmed by the financial and number burden associated with the national problem.” Adams knows that what he is trying to do is impossible: New York City does not have the resources to shelter an unlimited number of migrants for an unlimited amount of time. Yet the mayor keeps opening more inns. The Roosevelt Hotel will serve not just as shelter but as New York’s first central “asylum seeker arrival center.” An “arrival center” implies to would-be migrants, observing from afar on social media, that New York knows what it’s doing, and that it has infinite resources to host an unlimited number of people in hotel rooms. “We continue to ask our federal and state partners for a real decompression strategy,” the mayor said over the weekend. But why should President Biden do anything, when New York City is the decompression strategy for the rest of the country?

Best article I have read on the situation in New York City. Probably a 10 minute read. No Room at the Inn—Except in New York! Nicole Gelinas https://www.city-journal.org/article/mayor-adams-is-making-the-migrant-crisis-worse-for-new-york

Attorney general probing false claims about veterans displaced for migrants May 19, 2023 The state attorney general’s office is examining allegations that an Army veteran who runs a nonprofit foundation in the Hudson Valley had falsely claimed that homeless veterans had been displaced by migrants at several hotels last week, spurring a national outcry and potentially leading to significant donations for her organization. The claim was made by Sharon Toney-Finch, CEO of the Yerik Israel Toney Foundation for Preemies Inc., which was formed in 2014 and named after her son, who was born prematurely and died at 7 months of age, according to state officials. Over the last nine years, Toney-Finch’s nonprofit, which opened in Sullivan County but now has headquarters in Orange County, has expanded to offer support services for veterans and homeless individuals. Several local officials said that Toney-Finch and her organization, known as YIT Foundation, have been active in the community for years supporting veterans and others, including providing toiletry kits, food and sleeping bags to individuals without homes. The Times Union reported Friday that three unhoused men allege that Toney-Finch recruited them and several other homeless men earlier this week to go on camera and falsely claim they had been displaced from the Newburgh-area hotels last week. The men said that they were offered $100 to take part in the scheme. Records provided by the U.S. Army on Thursday confirm that Toney-Finch, 43, served in the Army from 2006 to 2015 as a specialist, including two one-year deployments to Iraq beginning in March 2007 and October 2009. Her nearly 20 military awards include an Army Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and an Army Commendation Medal, according to Army records. She also is in the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor. It’s unclear whether the false claim last week that veterans were forced to move out of hotels to make room for migrants from New York City will be investigated as a criminal matter. Earlier this week, Toney-Finch had provided an image of her nonprofit’s credit card to Assemblyman Maher as well as what was purported to be a receipt showing a payment with that credit card on April 12 for $37,800 to the Crossroads Hotel. Those images were sent to Maher as proof the hotel rooms had been booked and paid for by the foundation. The district attorney said that Toney-Finch is a well-known and respected person in that area and has gained renown for her work assisting homeless individuals and veterans, among others.

Rockland provides update on State of Emergency actions May 19, 2023 5:11 am It has been almost two weeks since Rockland County Executive Ed Day declared a state of emergency in response to New York City’s plan to house 340 male migrants at the Armoni Inn and Suites in Orangeburg. According to Day, the state of emergency was declared to prevent New York City’s decompression program from more than quadrupling the number of homeless in the county’s care. Day points out that NYC’s current population is approximately 8.3 million, down from 8.8 million in April 2020, contradicting claims that there is no more space for migrants in the U.S.’s largest declared Sanctuary City. “The fact that the largest city in our entire country believes Rockland, the smallest county in the State of New York, has the resources to undertake this just underscores the lack of planning that was done by the Adams Administration and every single emergency order declared across New York municipalities these last two weeks was done for the exact same reason,” explained County Executive Ed Day. More than a dozen other counties have enacted similar emergency orders The County’s lawsuit challenges the city’s lack of authority to establish a shelter in the County of Rockland and was granted a temporary restraining order by a judge. The City of New York lost their appeal to remove that temporary restraining order. Both parties are due in court for the lawsuit May 30th.

May 23, 2021 A New Jersey man was killed outside the strip club made famous by “The Sopranos” in an attack that saw him get brutally beaten, struck by a car and dragged several hundred feet, cops said. Marko Guberovic, 38, died around 3:40 a.m. Saturday following a fight with five men outside Satin Dolls — the jiggle joint depicted in the hit HBO mob drama as Bada Bing. Court papers say the fight broke out on the shoulder of Route 17 after they exchanged words outside the strip club. Guberovic was “ultimately punched several times, stumbled and landed face down in the fast lane,” according to the documents. Moments later, Guberovic was run over by a 2020 BWM M8, the docs say. The driver, whose name was not released, had been drinking and was speeding at the time, sources told the Daily Voice. Marko Guberovic died outside the famed Satin Dolls strip club. Three of the men — Kevin Agudelo and Christian Reyes, both 22, and Julio Pena, 23 — were arrested in Ridgefield, NJ, Saturday on charges of aggravated manslaughter and endangering an injured victim, authorities said. The trio was being held in Bergen County Jail as they await their first appearance in court. The two other men — Ardian Hoti, 23, and Fero Hoti, 24 — were picked up in West Hempstead, according to authorities. The two brothers were held in Nassau County pending extradition. It was unclear what led to the fight.

What is the name of the bartender ?

We are RE-OPENING Thursday Oct 8th at 11:30 am

I guess we will have a better idea of what is going on when they open on Thursday. If they post the dancer's schedule and there does not look like any of the regulars are missing, that person's post could be bull shit. But if they do not post the dancers on the schedule or if many regulars are not listed, that could validate the post.

Why are they not reopening until Thursday according to their website

Just heard from a dancer I know. Said she worked at Blush in South Hackensack NJ today. She said she worked outside. She said she wore a mask and so did customers. No lap dances.

On Johnny A's Hitching Post ( Paterson,NJ ) site We are now open! We will be open for inside Dining with DANCERS on Thursday, July 2nd, from 11:30 am to 2:30 am! *At 25% Occupancy* Operating hours will be back to normal from July 2nd forward… 7 Days a Week!

My favorite sports documentary Jerry Tarkanian and his Fresno State basketball team ( 1998 ) are the focus of a stunning documentary . The two-hour show, "Between the Madness,". Cant find it on you tube but must be out there somewhere. Small preview on you tube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvOmHHeBPnw Also If you are a sports bettor you probably will like these articles on someone considered the most successful sports bettor of all time ( 2011 ) and a follow up article on him today Very entertaining and interesting reading. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02DVW4iuziA https://www.newsmax.com/bernardkerik/andrew-mccarthy-justice-prosecution/2019/08/30/id/930657/ https://pregame.com/pregame_blogs/b/johnny-detroit/posts/billy-walters-and-the-story-of-the-computer-group

Check out this article with a picture of the Moonlight Lounge. Baby Dolls is right next to it on the left http://patersontimes.com/2019/08/17/paterson-bar-raided-for-prostitution-say-police/

Review was for Moonlight Lounge

They are charging $10 per lap dance ? That is a good deal. Don't know of any other place that low. Of course dealing with that bartender is a nightmare.

I agree with you about Vic's. Was there once and was not comfortable in that area. We happened to be checking out downtown Vegas, so I suggested we check out Chicas Bonitas. The 2 guys that were uptight, don't go to any type go go bars. In retrospect, should have gone back to hotel and dropped them off and then gone back with my one seedy friend.

Who was the bartender or what did she look like ?

I would think if the dancer is charging $300 for the VIP room, she definitely would charge more for outside the club.

Paid $300 for FS. First time was at a hotel. After that she was comfortable going to my apartment. Would not have paid for a hotel again on top of the $300.