Evening Roundup: Legionnaires' Disease Cluster in Harlem Leaves One Dead, Some NYC Weed Dispensaries Might Have to Pack Up and Move, Push for a Bronx Casino,...

Title: Evening Roundup: Legionnaires' Disease Cluster in Harlem Leaves One Dead, Some NYC Weed Dispensaries Might Have to Pack Up and Move, Push for a Bronx Casino, and Boozy Subway Ads on Trains

Sean Carlson: Harlem Legionnaires' cluster leaves one dead, weed dispensaries might have to move, push for Bronx casino, and boozy subway ads on trains. From WNYC, this is NYC Now. I'm Sean Carlson. Before we dive in, a quick note about the weather. We're expecting strong storms to push through our region Thursday night through Friday morning. The National Weather Service has issued a flood watch for all of New York City, so please take care out there. For the latest updates, head over to our website, Gothamist.

Now on to other news. A New Yorker has died due to Legionnaires' disease tied to an outbreak of cases in central Harlem. That's according to the city's health department, which is investigating a cluster of infections in the neighborhood. Health officials say more than 20 people have become ill with Legionnaires' since July 25th. They've sampled cooling towers in the area and ordered building owners to remediate any affected by the outbreak. Legionnaires' disease is a type of pneumonia caused by bacteria that grows in water, often in plumbing and cooling systems. Officials are urging central Harlem residents to watch out for flu-like symptoms and seek treatment if they get sick.

New York State's legal marijuana industry is reeling from a sudden reversal by the state's cannabis regulators. WNYC's Jon Campbell reports more than 100 dispensaries have been told they may have to move or close.

Jon Campbell: By law, dispensaries can't be within 500 feet of schools in New York. The state Office of Cannabis Management used to measure that from the entrance to a school building. This week, regulators say they screwed up. By law, they should have been measuring from the property line. The new interpretation affects at least 108 licensed dispensaries. The vast majority are in New York City, including 40 in Manhattan alone.

Sean Carlson: We have a map of the affected dispensaries on our news site, Gothamist.

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Sean Carlson: Mayor Adams is trying to revive an effort to bring a casino to the Bronx by vetoing the City Council's vote against it. WNYC's Arun Venugopal has more.

Arun Venugopal: The bid by the gaming company Bally's was effectively dead earlier this month when the City Council voted to reject its land use application. The mayor said the council's move wasn't fair, and that the casino would bring thousands of jobs to the Bronx. In response, Mara Davis, a spokesperson for the City Council, released a statement criticizing the mayor and noting that Adams had issued his first and only land use veto, not for housing but for a casino applicant. Bally's says the $4 billion project would bring 15,000 union construction jobs and 4,000 permanent union jobs to the Bronx at an average wage of $96,000.

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Sean Carlson: Up next, ads for alcoholic beverages might be returning to MTA subways and buses. That's after the break.

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Sean Carlson: Ads for boozy beverages could soon start popping up on New York City subways and buses after being banned for years. The MTA's board voted last month to ease its restrictions on alcohol ads in hopes of securing advertising money, but some critics are protesting the move. Caroline Lewis covers health care for WNYC and Gothamist. She spoke with my colleague Michael Hill about what's allowed under the new MTA rules and why some people oppose them.

Michael Hill: Caroline, take us back to when the ban on alcohol ads was first put in place. How did that come about?

Caroline: The MTA board first voted to ban alcohol ads back in 2017, citing public health concerns, and it took effect in 2018. At the time, this type of ban wasn't totally unprecedented. The MTA had already banned tobacco ads back in the '90s. The decision wasn't just made overnight either. People I spoke to who were part of the effort to get the MTA to ban alcohol ads said there was a years-long grassroots effort around this issue that brought together faith and community groups, young people, public health advocates, people from around the city. They made the case to the board that alcohol ads fuel underage drinking and also that advertisers were specifically targeting certain communities of color, so they made this an equity issue as well.

Michael Hill: What are the new rules that are in place now around alcohol ads? What's changed?

Caroline: MTA officials say they're not lifting the ban on alcohol ads, but just creating some common-sense exceptions. They also say they're putting in place guardrails to prevent kids from seeing the ads. I did review the policy changes, and they make it pretty clear that ads for alcohol are now allowed in a variety of formats throughout the system. Under the new policy, the MTA allows alcohol ads on billboards as long as they're not visible within 500 feet of a school playground or house of worship.

It also allows the big wraparound ads that are sometimes on shuttle trains between Times Square and Grand Central. It allows ads on the digital displays that are scattered throughout the system, but the MTA policy does say that alcohol ads aren't allowed on digital displays during certain morning and afternoon hours on weekdays when kids are usually commuting to and from school.

Michael Hill: What's the MTA's rationale for this change?

Caroline: For one thing, MTA officials say that digital displays make it easier to control exposure to alcohol ads. They say with this new technology, the ads can be randomized so they don't target any one particular neighborhood. Officials also say the changes were the result of some comparison research they did on other American cities. They cited Chicago in particular, which eased its own ban on alcohol ads several years ago. I think, of course, the central argument is that the MTA is missing out on revenue by rejecting ads that contain alcoholic beverages. In some cases, they say that includes ads for restaurants and sports venues.

One MTA board member pointed out that people are seeing alcohol ads as soon as they get off the subway in some cases, so the MTA might as well be getting some of that money. They said it could bring in an additional $7 to $10 million a year if they do allow these ads, though, of course, that's in a system with a budget of about $20 billion.

Michael Hill: On the other hand, you have everyone who pushed for the MTA to ban these ads in the first place. How are they responding?

Caroline: They're really taken aback. There were a few members of the public who did testify at MTA meetings about this issue ahead of the board vote last month. Advocates I spoke to said that the vote to loosen the rules happened much faster and with much less public input than the vote to put the ban in place originally. Some people don't buy the argument that the MTA can really prevent young people from seeing alcohol ads just by limiting the digital displays to certain times of day. They're making the case that young people are traveling through the transit system at all hours. Some advocates who were part of the original coalition to fight for a ban on alcohol ads say they're really re-energized and are now organizing again to get it fully reinstated.

Michael Hill: What does the research say about the link between alcohol ads and underage drinking?

Caroline: There's actually a pretty strong body of evidence suggesting that exposure to alcohol ads contributes to underage drinking. For people of any age, alcohol consumption is associated with a wide range of health risks. The Surgeon General just put out a warning earlier this year linking alcohol with several kinds of cancer. Public health advocates I spoke to also said they consider this a pivotal moment because youth drinking is down overall for a variety of reasons, and they're worried about losing that progress. I think part of the question at hand is how much responsibility the MTA has in the public health sphere and how it balances that with its revenue needs.

Michael Hill: Caroline, you said no ads or billboards within 500 feet of schools and houses of worship, but within 500 feet of schools, school children still have to walk to and from school, so they'll see these billboards.

Caroline: Yes. I think that's part of it. It's interesting to me that when I reached out to say to the MTA, "What's your comment on lifting this ban on alcohol ads?" They were adamant that the ban is still in place. The reality is, these ads, if they're present throughout the system, people will be able to see them. Certainly, advocates made the case that children are not going to be limited to traveling during certain hours or in certain locations with their families if they have to go to after-school activities. Some kids might have jobs that they're working or they might be traveling with their families.

One advocate referred to the subway not just as the school bus for some kids, but as the family car. I think the fact is that when people are traveling on the transit system, that is a lot of exposure for a lot of people. Certainly, MTA officials said they have to consider their role as a public agency.

Sean Carlson: That's WNYC's Caroline Lewis in conversation with my colleague Michael Hill. Thanks for listening to NYC Now from WNYC. I'm Sean Carlson. We'll be back tomorrow.

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