Mayor Bloomberg yesterday defiantly drew a line in the sand with the Wall Street protesters — warning that the city will be cracking down on anti-greed demonstrators when they leave their lower Manhattan sanctuary.
“We will start enforcing that more,” Bloomberg said of rules requiring permits for marches and assemblies of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Bloomberg’s hard line came after previously crediting demonstrators with “generally obeying the law” and being largely “peaceful.”
He said he was concerned the continued demonstration is interfering with other New Yorkers’ rights to enjoy their property and the city.
“We’ll eventually have to work something out here,” Bloomberg said during his weekly appearance on John Gambling’s WOR radio show.
The mayor didn’t specify what type of crackdown or when it would begin.
He also did not mention recent instances where the NYPD has taken tough stances, including a widely publicized incident in which a cop pepper-sprayed a protester and mass arrests three weeks ago on the Brooklyn Bridge.
The mayor’s office could not offer further explanation of Bloomberg’s threat.
While maintaining a home base at Zuccotti Park downtown, protesters have taken their movement to points throughout the city, including Washington Square Park, City Hall and uptown buildings where some of the city’s richest business people live.
Late last night, folk singers Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie joined about 400 Occupy Wall Street demonstrators for a march from 95th and Broadway to Columbus Circle, where protesters sang “We Shall Overcome” and “This Little Light of Mine.” There were no arrests.
In a statement, OWS’s media coordinator Thorin Caristo said Bloomberg’s “inability to create a clear and definitive opinion or position on OWS just shows he’s being tossed around like a bird in a storm.
“We all know what that storm is, that storm is the growing concern in the higher factions of Wall Street, that this movement might actually be making a difference.
Civil-rights attorney Ron Kuby scoffed that the mayor is out of touch.
“We’ve seen video of police pepper-spraying innocent women, sucker- punching peaceful demonstrators,” Kuby said.
“What is the mayor suggesting — they use billy clubs and pistols? It’s such a jarring perception gap between the way he sees the police and the way everybody else sees police.”
Kuby also insisted demonstrators — simply walking down city streets in groups — do not need a permit.
Additional reporting by Aaron Feis