Downtown leaders have given the thumbs-down to seven upcoming street fairs, half of which are sponsored by dubious charities — and activists are threatening to sue the city if it issues permits.
“We’re really fed up, plain and simple,” said Maury Schott who heads the Community Board 2 committee that reviews the permits for the street-clogging events in SoHo and the Village.
City rules call for every street fair to be sponsored by a nonprofit. But as The Post first reported last July, some, such as the International AIDS Prevention Initiative, exist in name only.
The group lost its tax-exempt status and has no address or phone number, The Post found in July. Its director, Jeff Bosacki, claims the charitable mission is for him to travel the world displaying panels from the AIDS memorial quilt. “They don’t exist,” Schott fumed at a recent meeting of the Sidewalk and Street Activities Committee. “It’s one guy who lives in Los Angeles.”
The board only makes recommendations on granting street-fair permits. Those recommendations may be ignored by the mayor’s Street Activity Permit Office. The city has asked promoters to reduce the number of fairs. But it has been reluctant to deny permits, saying court rulings have found the fairs to be a form of protected free speech.