Business landlords would face penalties for harassing tenants under a bill to be introduced in the City Council Thursday.
The legislation bans commercial landlords from using physical intimidation or threats, denying repairs or cutting off heat and utilities to try to force the business to leave.
“Bad-actor commercial landlords have behaved in a way that kind of goes under the radar” and faced “no penalty whatsoever,” said Councilman Robert Cornegy (D-Brooklyn), who is sponsoring the bill along with Councilman Mark Levine (D-Manhattan).
“You’ll have a landlord who figures he can get four times the amount for a commercial space that he’s getting now, and someone midway through a ten-year lease, and the landlord doesn’t want to wait. So they’ll force tenants out through neglect and harassment,” he said.
Residential landlords who use the same tactics on unwanted tenants already face fines up to $10,000 under a law passed last year, but the rules don’t apply to commercial buildings.
Under the new legislation, businesses who bring a complaint could be awarded a month’s rent or $1,000, plus damages and attorney’s fees.
Melville Simon, owner of Brooklyn Clothing Lab in Bedford- Stuyvesant, said his new landlord did work that wrecked the roof, causing massive leaks, in what he believes was a bid to get him to leave so the building can be demolished and replaced with condos.
“There were leaks all over. The leaks damaged everything I had – fabrics, machinery, clothing,” he said. “This was an attempt to evict me forcibly without going the right direction.”