Mayor Bloomberg yesterday suggested that he’s finally losing patience with the incipient public-health crisis masquerading as a protest demonstration in and around Zuccotti Park.
Which means, he said, “we will start enforcing” some basic city laws — like requiring permits every time the Occupy Wall Street folks decide to stage a march.
(Or, perhaps, hold a public prayer session, as they did yesterday with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, once named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas-related fund-raising case.)
That’s appropriate — for starters.
But the complaints leveled at a Community Board 1 hearing Thursday won’t be resolved by bureaucratic paper-shuffling.
“They’re defecating on our doorsteps,” fumed board member Catherine Hughes. Other speakers said OWS occupiers keep dumping urine into the streets.
Most complained about the ongoing noise — particularly from nonstop drumming — in the neighborhood.
Others cited the barricades that are hurting local businesses and making the residents feel like they’re in a state of siege.
Which is the ultimate irony, of course.
Wall Street business isn’t affected by the “occupation.” It’s small businesses and other job creators that are being hurt.
The mayor and other pols — like Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Manhattan BP Scott Stringer — are right when they stress the need to find a balance between the protesters’ First Amendment rights and the rights of the neighborhood to peace, quiet and cleanliness.
Problem is, there’s been a lot of enabling of the protesters by pols like Bloomberg, Quinn and Stringer — and precious little effort to protect the interests of all of their constituents.
“It’s just not so easy,” concedes Bloomberg. “You can’t just walk in and say, ‘Hey, you’re out of here.’”
True, Zuccotti Park isn’t public property.
On the other hand, doorstep defecation hardly qualifies as protected speech under any definition of the First Amendment — and there is no reason to put up with it.
Quinn and Stringer have revealed themselves to be hopeless panderers here — not surprising, given that the municipal unions so strongly support the protest.
Bloomberg, however, is a clever guy.
He and his brain trust would have no difficulty dealing with a rodent infestation — private property or no private property — and, after 35 days, that’s pretty much what prevails at Zuccotti Park.
A constructive first step would be to strictly enforce all laws: permits, excessive noise, public urinating and defecation, illegal drug use — whatever.
The protest should continue, if the protesters want — but the Zuccotti Park encampment is long past its sell-by date.
Time to shut it down.