City officials want a judge to ground a problem-plagued double-decker tour-bus fleet as early as tomorrow – just days after one of its vehicles killed an elderly actor in Hell’s Kitchen.
Deputy Mayor Joseph Lhota said an administrative law judge will be asked to temporarily suspend the license of New York Apple Tours.
The Department of Consumer Affairs last month moved to yank the company’s license because of its horrendous safety and diesel-emissions record.
“We will be ratcheting that up at the present time to move for a temporary suspension and not allow them to operate in the City of New York,” Lhota said.
The company has amassed a shoddy record, including 1,800 moving violations since 1997, 140 traffic accidents since 1996 and violations of the federal Clean Air Act, Lhota said.
On Monday, one of the company’s buses struck and killed veteran actor Randolph Walker, 71, as he was crossing 45th Street at Ninth Avenue on his way to an audition.
The driver was charged with not having a license to operate a bus and for trying to drive down a residential street that was off limits to the bus at the time of the crash.
New York Apple’s owner, Hayim Grant, who gave Mayor Giuliani’s Senate campaign $1,000, did not return calls yesterday, and his public-relations firm, Rubenstein Associates, declined to comment.
Walker’s death infuriated residents and community leaders in his West Side neighborhood, where the tour company’s buses have long been a sore point.
The city first moved to revoke New York Apple Tours’ license in 1995 after the company was caught switching license plates on its buses to get around state safety inspections.
A judge allowed New York Apple to continue operating once the company’s buses passed inspection.
State Transportation Department officials said a whopping 42.5 percent of New York Apple’s buses flunked their annual inspections and were pulled from service up until 1999.
Last year, the company improved – 25 percent of its buses failed inspection – still a far cry from the industry average of 10 percent. The company also ran afoul of the federal government.
New York Apple Tours was fined $800,000 in September after admitting in federal court to lying about the age of buses imported from London between 1992 and 1995.
By claiming that the buses were built before 1967, they were considered exempt from federal emissions and safety standards. The buses were actually manufactured in the early 1970s.
Lhota claimed the 73 New York Apple buses create nearly as much pollution as the Transit Authority’s 4,300 buses.
“They’re hazards to our health,” Lhota said.