Billionaires Have Bad Days, TooCarl Icahn is struggling with various projects, Sharon Waxman becomes the latest media lady to start a news-aggregation Website, and — it’s official! — most City Council members pay less rent than you do, in our daily roundup of finance, media, real-estate and entertainment news.
early and often
Christine Quinn Joins the Scandal BandwagonThe City Council Speaker has been allocating monies to phony nonprofits at the beginning of every year so she can use the funds later for favors, reports the Post.
Mediavore
Patsy’s Sues Patsy’s; Bones Found Beneath Tribeca EateryTwo Italian restaurants sue each other over Frank Sinatra, Tokyo Bar finds something scary in the basement, and the economic forecast for food prices does not look good.
Department of Agriculture Sued Over Beef; Skip Wine Pairings in Top RestaurantsThe Humane Society filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against the Agriculture Department, alleging the bureau has created a legal loophole that consistently permits potentially sick cows to enter the food supply. [NYT]
The City Council’s bill to place more fruit-and-vegetable street vendors in poor neighborhoods could hurt business for grocery stores and bodegas in those neighborhoods. [NYT]
Even with a reservation, dining at hot spots in L.A. can be just as bad, if not worse, than in New York. [Diner’s Journal/NYT]
intel
Housing Advocate Brad Lander to Run for DeBlasio’s Council SpotBrooklyn City Councilman Bill DeBlasio plans to run for borough president, and the guy who wants to replace him is part of the borough’s urbanist next generation. “I’m running,” said Brad Lander, 38, who directs the nonprofit Pratt Center for Community Development. Lander, neighbors might remember, got the Bloomberg administration to include affordable-housing incentives when rezoning the Williamsburg waterfront two years ago. A savvy political operator, Lander is also popular with the brownstone-bourgeois crowd — the Atlantic Yards Report quotes him approvingly. Even Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, has battled with Lander and admits grudging respect. “He’s a bright individual,” Spinola says. Having successfully fought last year to bring those affordable-housing incentives to parts of all five boroughs, Lander now wants to expand them to the entire city and require public amenities in all development. He also wants to save rent stabilization. “What I feel a lot of passion about is, shouldn’t this growth and development bring us new parks and affordable housing and jobs?” he told us. “It seems like all they bring is luxury condos.” —Alec Appelbaum
in other news
The City Is Coming for Your TakeoutThe city has taken away from you the simple pleasure of a beer and a cigarette, the delicious trans fats that made food you know is not good for you even less good for you, the words “nigger” and, potentially, “bitch” from your vocabulary, and, if Peter Vallone Jr. has his way, the right to look out your window and into your neighbor’s. So what can the City Council come up with to ban next? Today’s Sun finds the answer: Styrofoam! “It is mind-boggling that our city, which is becoming a leader on environmental issues, is still using Styrofoam when we know it is extremely harmful to our environment and creating massive amounts of waste,” said the councilman behind the idea, Bill de Blasio. And frankly we’re disappointed. That makes perfect sense: Can’t he come up with something more creative to ban?
City Council Bill Would Take Out City’s Styrofoam [NYS]
Earlier: Peter Vallone Jr. Is Coming for You, and for Jimmy Stewart
