Organizers of this weekend’s Labor Day Parade have filed a lawsuit against the city, charging that an 11th-hour ban on open-flame cooking “seriously threatens” the event.
Officials of the New York City Central Labor Council, an umbrella group representing 500 local unions, say they were informed of regulations prohibiting food from being served from parked vehicles or cooked on open flames only within the past two weeks.
“Many locals have contracted with caterers to provide barbecue lunches and picnics,” the council said in Manhattan Supreme Court papers.
“These expenditures are in the thousands of dollars, with some locals expending close to $20,000.”
Now, the suit said, unions members are “faced with [a] no-win choice of losing thousands of dollars in deposits” or getting tickets from cops – and many “are considering not coming to the parade at all.”
A hearing is scheduled for today.