Synagogue Cited For Running Illegal Hotels Linked To Chabad

The MacDougal Street Synagogue runs hostels and longer term rentals that violate New York City ordinances, including fire safety ordinances, claiming these hotels are "synagogues" and are therefore exempt from government regulation. The Synagogue's president is Rabbi Shmaya Katz, also runs the Chabad of Wall Street.

 

MacDougal Street Synagogue Claims First Amendment Right To Run 'Illegal Transient Hotel'
Matt Sledge • Huffington Post

In a case winding its way through courts, a synagogue is claiming a Constitutional right to run a hotel that would otherwise not conform to city codes.

Last Thursday, New York City's Department of Buildings served a partial vacate order at 1370 York Avenue, calling several of the building's rooms part of an "illegal transient hotel." For now the city seems to have succeeded in shutting down the guest rooms.

1370 York is at the center of an unusual legal dispute. An organization called the MacDougal Street Synagogue leases that building and two next door at 1372 and 1374 and runs them as lodgings, even though they are zoned as ordinary apartments. The city has also shut down the hotel rooms in 1372 and 1374.

"Those are not synagogues in my district, those are residential buildings and they're using them as hotels," said state Assembly Member Micah Z. Kellner, who represents the Upper East Side district that includes the properties. "Whether there's a religious aspect or not, illegal hotelling is not good for our city," he added.

In various complaints, the Department of Buildings' website ticks off problems with exits, fire alarms and sprinkler systems at the York Avenue locations.

One inspector's report also cites a partition erected to create additional bedrooms. Partitions have become a hot-button issue in New York in the wake of a devastating fire in the Bronx that killed three residents of an illegally subdivided apartment.

Last September, according to a recent court decision, a city inspector at the 1370 property "spoke to two women who alleged that they lived in an apartment at the premises under long-term leases and that the landlord had entered the apartment without their permission and subdivided it to create a third bedroom, which was being used by a succession of European tourists."

On its website, the synagogue describes itself as "a not-for-profit religious organization based in New York City that promotes a modern take on tolerance to New York City visitors from throughout the world." Those visitors have had the option to stay in rooms on York Avenue or in the East Village and the Financial District.

On lodging search websites like Hostels247.com, the synagogue describes the rooms as part of an effort "to build a new synagogue and in its never ending quest to teach tolerance." For now, it seems, the organization has no place to call its own -- besides its multiple hotel and hostel properties.

Time and again the city has hit MacDougal's locations with Department of Buildings inspections, and as with many such operations around the city, those complaints seem to have done little to affect daily business.

Last year MacDougal, along with the owner of 1370 York Avenue, fired back at the city with a motion claiming that because of the First Amendment and a quirk in city rules, it should be able to expose tourists to "the teachings of tolerance without being subject to the restrictive apartment conversion requirements set forth in the New York City Administrative Code."

MacDougal said non-profits are granted leeway under the city codes to run dormitories. A sign posted on the doors of one of its properties states that the synagogue believes "rooming units within an apartment are permitted to be used by religious institutions" and that "the exemption is complete and undefined."

A decision last month in the New York County Supreme Court denied the synagogue's motion for an injunction against the city.

Justice Barbara Jaffe wrote that MacDougal and the owner of 1370 York Avenue:

have failed to establish, prima-facie and as a matter of law, that the exception set forth in Administrative Code § 27-2077 applies to them absent evidence as to whether the premises are owned and operated without profit and whether their renters can be considered “students attending a school or college,” or that they are entitled to an injunction in light of their admission that various health and safety violations are present at the premises.

Jaffe mostly ignored the synagogue's First Amendment claims, which hinge on the tolerance programs the organization touts. Some former visitors say those programs consisted of nothing more than posters.

Haley Stocking of Seattle stayed at 1374 York Avenue and found the accommodations to be clean and reasonably priced.

"We were thrown off by the name when we initially arrived, since there was nothing about a synagogue listed on the website where we'd made reservations," Stocking told HuffPost in an email. "We weren't given any pamphlets or educational handouts, but there was a good deal of material posted on the walls in the hallways (just 8.5x11-sized papers promoting tolerance)."

Another happy customer, S Jessica Deal of North Carolina, echoed Stocking's comments about her stay. "We never received any informational materials, besides our bill, of course. I did feel safer knowing we were staying in a synagogue, if that accounts for anything," she said.

Their experiences match dozens of reviews on HostelBookers.com that make scant mention of tolerance programs -- reviews that, since Monday, are available only as Google caches.

MacDougal's York Avenue locations have vanished from the "Stay With Us" section of its website, and a city inspection at 1370 York Avenue Tuesday found compliance with the partial vacate order.

The synagogue's president, Rabbi Shmaya Katz, also runs the Chabad of Wall Street. A sign on the door at 1370 York Avenue said the synagogue and a community center were "coming soon," and that in the meantime "Rabbi Shmaya Katz and the Board of Directors invite your inquiries regarding joining our synagogue, planning your bar mitzvah, weddings, and other blessed events."

Katz and the synagogue did not return requests for comment.

Tom Cayler, the volunteer committee chair on illegal hotels for the West Side Neighborhood Alliance, which tracks alleged illegal guest houses throughout the city, said that as far as he can tell, "the MacDougal Street Synagogue does not exist as a brick and mortar religious institution."

Cayler said illegal hotels are a problem throughout the city, and a new law passed last year by the state legislature stiffened rules against them. That law took effect on May 1, after some operators attempted to issue an injunction halting its enforcement.

Since the city's legal victory, various advocates and legislators said they have heard about increased enforcement action against such properties. The city did not return a request for comment.

A sign on the door at 1374 York Avenue chalked up the closure of its rooms to "emergency repairs and a new law that went into effect on May 1, 2011." Another sign, invoking arguments of many in the short-term rental industry, alleged that "the 'hotel lobby' is trying to eliminate competition."

Kellner said that if enforcement has been stepped up, he is pleased.

"I think it's terrific; I was a sponsor of the law," Kellner said. "Illegal hotelling has really become very prevalent in my district over the last five to ten years, and it really endangers both our housing stock and the residents who live in these buildings."

[Hat Tip: Joel Katz.]

Comments

[seymour]

one big problem is fire safty. Many people do not know or think about what would happen if a fire started in here. Good thing the city closed it down.

Me think I will start a whore house, if will be in my shul and the girl will give a 5 minute lectern on religious tolerance and be exempt from law enforcement

anybody with a brain can see what katsa
z is doing is a scam to get arount to law to make money

shame on him to claim he is doing it for some higher goal.

Amazingly I am sure he will suffer no condemnation from the frum community since his action are withing their limited ethic guide

[seymour]

one big problem is fire safety. Many people do not know or think about what would happen if a fire started in here. Good thing the city closed it down.

Me think I will start a whore house, if will be in my shul and the girl will give a 5 minute lecture on religious tolerance and be exempt from law enforcement

anybody with a brain can see what katz is doing is a scam to get around the law to make money

shame on him to claim he is doing it for some higher goal.

Amazingly I am sure he will suffer no condemnation from the frum community since his action are withing their limited ethic guide

Posted by: seymour | May 15, 2011 at 11:04 AM

[charedi]

shmayeh. i think u should report ur apperance on the zev brenner show, with the hypocrite "rabbi" frankfurter. i know the guy personally he is the biggest impostor around and likes to lay blame at others. and it might b appropiate for u to ask him publicly how come, he did not follow the psak of his beloved rabbonim in a din torah where they labeled him a ganuv and they were forced to put a siruv on him which he did not comply to till today!!!

[Yochanan Lavie]

Apologies to the Eagles:

On a dark New York street way, long peyos in my hair
Warm smell of tchulent, rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a black clad Rav
My head was hairy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for Maariv
There it stood in the doorway;
I checked the mezuzah
And I was thinking to myself,
’this could be heaven or meshuggah'
Then she lit Shabbos candles and she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor,
I thought I heard them say...

Welcome to the hotel "Chabad inform ya"
Such a lovely shul
Such a shaky deal
Plenty of room at the hotel "Chabad inform ya"
Any time of year, you can daven here

Her mind is tefillin-twisted, she got the lukshen kugel
She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys, that she calls kollel
How they dance in the courtyard, sweet fabregen.
Some dance to remember, some dance to
to be swingin'

So I called up the rabbi,
’please bring me my wine’
He said, ’we haven’t had that spirit here since it was kiddush time’
And still the Rebbe is calling from far away,
Davening in the middle of the night
Just to hear him say...

Welcome to the hotel Chabad inform ya
Such a lovely shul
Such a shaky deal
They davening up at the hotel Chabad inform ya
Want moshiach now, bring your holy cow

Mirrer is a yeshiva,
The Kedem wine on ice
And she said ’we are all just BT's here, on the Rebbe's advice’
And in the Beit Midrash,
They gathered for the siyum
The stab it with their schechita knives,
But they should be in a museum

Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the mezzuzah I kissed before
’Nu,’ said the shliach,
You are programmed to be a Hasid.
You can frum out any time you like,
But you can never leave!

[Dave]

Yochanan,
Hilarious !

[Yochanan Lavie]

Thanks, Dave.

[OMG]

Yochanan Lavie, one of my favorite songs “Hotel California”, thank you for all the work you put in, I wish that one day you could put together a collection of parodies and make some money on your labor.

[seymour]

Yochanan Lavie

why don't you cut a record

[Yochanan Lavie]

Thanks, OMG, Seymour. I am thinking of a book of song parody lyrics, actually.

[David]

In various complaints, the Department of Buildings' website ticks off problems with exits, fire alarms and sprinkler systems at the York Avenue locations.

This is standard minhag at frumma institutions.

[Office of the Chief Rabbi]

YL great today, along with recent beatles'tune.

[Abracadabra]

Yochanan - Nice job! LOL!

[Yochanan Lavie]

Thanks, OCR, Abra.

[RS]

Is there any update on this story? I am a former resident and can confirm that this was being run as an illegal hostel.