The $27 million in restaurant fines that the Health Department expects to collect this year is essentially a transfer of wealth from the patrons of those establishments to the city government. This to support a regulatory agency that gives passing inspections to rat-infested restaurants while fining clean restaurants $200 to $2000 for such “crimes” as cooking a whole turkey.
Dismantling all of New York’s unnecessary and incompetent regulatory agencies, beginning with the Health Department, would remove the shackles off of businessmen while putting hundreds of millions of dollars back into the pockets of their customers.