Chronically tardy Mayor Bill de Blasio met his match Thursday in little Jael Jesus Ramirez.
Oblivious to protocol, the 4-year-old plunked himself down on the floor for a breather after the mayor arrived 45 minutes late to his very first bill signing.
The adults standing near the podium didn’t have that luxury.
De Blasio and his aides took their late show on the road to Steve’s Craft Ice Cream in Brooklyn to showcase a new law that requires businesses with as few as five workers to provide paid sick leave.
But, just as at City Hall, he kept about three dozen people waiting . . . and waiting . . . and waiting.
The mayor made no mention of his tardiness, and his staff wouldn’t comment on the reason.
De Blasio finally signed the bill slowly, writing one letter at a time using different pens — a technique that he said he actually practiced.
“In our whole life, we learn in school how to do your scripts, your cursive — whatever it is, you learn how to write your name and you do that for a long time,” the mayor said.
“And then one day a staffer comes up to you in City Hall and says, ‘Don’t do that anymore, do it one letter at a time with a different pen.’ ”
“It’s now law!” he finally proclaimed, as the boy looked on.
De Blasio said he wanted to hold the ceremony someplace other than City Hall to be “out where the people are” and to demonstrate “what each piece of legislation means.”
Afterward, he moved downstairs to where the ice-cream company stocked its product for some taste-testing, while chatting with business owners affected by the law.
The new mandate kicks in April 1 for businesses with 20 or more employees, and six months later those with five or more.
The mayor said the law will benefit half a million more people than the original one passed last year.
He railed against the federal government for not acting first.
“In a perfect world, these are the kind of things our federal government would’ve taken on a long time ago,” de Blasio said.
Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito said the law will benefit those in her East Harlem district who were affected by the recent gas explosion.
“One of the survivors, who is now a widower, who lost his wife, who lost his daughter . . . whose son, who’s disabled, was pulled out of the rubble — that father, who is a low-wage worker, has stood by his son’s side at the hospital since this incident has happened,” she said.
“He will benefit.”