The Sidewalk Sale, One more Global Warming Casualty

Council Would Fine Stores if They Cool the Sidewalks

Now the City Council is expected to pass legislation on Thursday that would impose fines on stores that leave their doors wide open with the air conditioning on.

Councilwoman Gale A. Brewer, a Manhattan Democrat who is co-sponsoring the bill, said she gets a lot of mail from residents complaining about these stores. She said electronics stores are the biggest offenders, though there are plenty of other shops on Fifth Avenue, 34th Street and other popular areas that keep their doors open.

“I’m calling it the Clyde Haberman bill,” she said, a reference to the NYC columnist for The New York Times, who has written about the topic on several occasions.

Ms. Brewer and 18 other council members signed on to the bill, which would affect any business with at least 4,000 square feet, or small stores that are part of a chain with five or more stores in the city. The Department of Consumer Affairs would issue a warning to first-time offenders who kept their exterior doors open while an air-conditioning system intended to cool the area was in use.

Stores would be fined $200 for a second offense and $400 for subsequent violations within an 18-month period.

“Hopefully, they will get the message to help save the planet,” Ms. Brewer said. “There’s no use cooling the sidewalk.”

Her timing is good. Thursday is the fifth anniversary of the blackout that left tens of millions of residents in the dark in eight states across the Midwest and Northeast.

Kathryn S. Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, a business policy and advocacy group, regretted the need to “legislate common sense” but said, “The energy crisis in terms of global warming and fuel costs suggests that air conditioning should be contained as much as possible.”

According to calculations by Steven Winter Associates, a building systems consultant, a 5,000-square-foot store would pay $380 extra over a summer season if it kept its doors open with the air conditioning on, while a 10,000-square-foot store would spend an additional $1,000.

“The only group that should be opposing this sensible legislation is OPEC,” said Eric A. Goldstein, a senior lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which worked with the City Council on the legislation.