Janae Pierre: Welcome to NYC NOW, your source for local news in and around New York City, from WNYC, I'm Janae Pierre. New York State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal is proposing legislation that would make it easier to hospitalize someone for psychiatric care against their will. The announcement comes after three New Yorkers were fatally stabbed last week, allegedly by a homeless man who had previously been hospitalized for psychiatric care. It also comes after Mayor Eric Adams pushes his own changes to the state's standard of involuntary commitment. The bill, known as the HELP act, would allow psychiatric nurse practitioners, psychologists and social workers to assess whether someone should be held rather than only relying on psychiatrists. Hoylman-Sigal says the move would also help address staffing shortages.

New York City's Department of Transportation says the city has created 500 more loading zones. The move aims to curb congestion, decrease double parking, and help keep bike and bus lanes clear. The new loading zones are in areas identified by the public through the department's online portal. It was launched last year, and allows residents to mark on a map where they notice problem spots. The new zones are marked with striped lines and signs that say "No Parking" and "Loading Zone." New Yorkers can submit more suggested locations at the Department of Transportation's website. That's nycdotprojects.info.

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Up next, new York City's trash revolution takes a messy turn with new bin rules for small buildings. How are landlords handling it? Find out after the break.

New York City is in the midst of a trash revolution, as Mayor Eric Adams is calling it. Starting last April, trash bags are no longer allowed on sidewalks before 8 at night, pushed back from 4pm, and some supers are not too happy about it.

Dominick Romeo: "In all actuality, our lives have been uprooted by this ordinance. We are missing out with family dinners. We are missing out with events with our friends."

Raul Rivera: "They're kind of taking away our privacy also because we have lives too."

Janae Pierre: That was Dominick Romeo and Raul Rivera at a rally at City Hall a week ago. Now we're entering the next phase of the trash revolution–containerization. Single family homes and buildings under nine units now have to use trash bins instead of piling their trash bags on the curb. While the shift towards bin seems like the next reasonable step in the city's war on rats, it's also brought on new responsibilities for landlords of smaller buildings.

My colleague, Sean Carlson, spoke with landlord John Tsevdos, who owns six buildings that are under nine units, for his reaction.

Sean Carlson: John, the city announced over the summer that smaller buildings like yours would have to put their trash in bins instead of on the street. Since then, can you tell us what you've done to prepare?

John Tsevdos: Yes, it's a big headache. I support the all-out war on rats. I don't want rats. I don't want to get summonses for rat feces, but there's no live-in super. I have to pay someone to go around to all my buildings, drive around just to wheel these containers in five feet so that I'm in compliance. In my private house where I live, I've always been using garbage cans. When the sanitation comes and they pick up the garbage, it doesn't matter. I could go down in my bathrobe, wheel it back in and go back upstairs. I can't do that in properties that I don't live in or don't have a live-in super. Besides uprooting the logistical schedule of it, it's also uprooted my budget. Whatever cost I have, I incur when the leases are up. I'm going to have to factor it in. There's no other way. It's a business.

Sean Carlson: We're about a week away from the start of the mandate. How has it been going so far? Have you been running into any hiccups, trying to comply with this?

John Tsevdos: Yes. The other logistical problem is that, let's say, the guy goes there the next day to wheel the garbage cans back in. What if he or she goes there, and they haven't been picked up yet? Now, do I tell them, okay, go back in an hour, go back in three hours. We don't know when sanitation picks them up. They could be leaving their home, driving all around Brooklyn to wheel these garbage cans in, and then some of them were picked up, some of them aren't picked up. It's like I'm throwing darts.

Sean Carlson: Now you've talked about the financial burden of this, right? Both between the cost of the bins and having to hire someone to wheel these things in and out. Can you talk more about that burden and what that actually looks like in terms of how much the costs are and how much you might have to raise rents for your tenants?

John Tsevdos: Yes. It's slightly over $1,000. It's like $1,050 to round it off. It adds up. You have to make money, otherwise, what am I doing it for? I'm not a nonprofit.

Sean Carlson: What has your communication with the city looked like about all of this? Are they doing anything to smooth the transition?

John Tsevdos: Not enough. I wouldn't say nothing, but I wouldn't say enough. There's a lot of little things. They're communicating, but it's not getting anywhere. It's like going home to your wife and having a conversation, but the outcome is the same at the end as it was in the beginning. Nothing changed. The other thing with the new law is with the compost specifically, how do I enforce tenants not throwing food scraps in the compost? Am I going to have to look through their personal compost bins and dig my hands through people's food? How do you do this? It's unreasonable to ask that, and then if we don't do it, you get a fine.

Sean Carlson: You're talking about the curbside composting program that started last month. That's where the city is actually requiring people to compost their food scraps. In April, they're going to start fining landlords if they don't. Clearly all of this is an adjustment. You got a lot to contend with and figure out in a short period of time. Talk about the rat problem. Have you had rats in your buildings? Is there any part of you that looks forward to having cleaner streets outside your buildings or in your buildings?

John Tsevdos: To be fair, two of my properties, their sister properties, are side by side. They've had rat problems. Like I said, I support the all-out war on rats. It has to be done with owner input, though. It seems like there's no input or they listen to us, and they say, okay, and then nothing changes. I do want to have a cleaner city. I don't want rats in my house. There's recycling cans. There's garbage cans. Some of them have to be chained up. Then there's the composting. All these things are good things to do, but it's too much at once.

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Janae Pierre: That's landlord John Tsevdos in conversation with my colleague Sean Carlson.

For 30 years, Café Gitane has been a neighborhood staple in Nolita. That's short for "North of Little Italy." Now McNally Jackson Books, its longtime neighbor, is publishing a new coffee table book that dives into the cafe's history and the story of the changing neighborhood. Here's WNYC's Ryan Kailath.

Ryan Kailath: Luc Lévy went from Morocco to Paris as a teenager before moving to New York in his 20s, where he worked odd jobs in nightlife and hospitality.

Luc Lévy: Then one day I was dropping somebody off in the neighborhood, and from the corner of my eyes, I could see the "For Rent" sign.

Ryan Kailath: He rented the old, shuttered bodega for $1,500 a month and opened up Café Gitane in 1994. For months, hardly anyone came until an item in the New York Times' Style section highlighted the café as a place to relax and linger.

Luc Lévy: That was the beginning.

Ryan Kailath: It became a haven for young creatives drawn to cheap rent in what was then a quiet edge of Little Italy—Vincent Gallo and Moby and a pre-Titanic Leonardo DiCaprio. The crowds haven't left Gitane since.

Sarah McNally: I was too shy to go to Café Gitane. It just seemed like that was where all the really cool people went. I didn't go there for years. I was too nervous.

Ryan Kailath: Sarah McNally opened her bookstore, McNally Jackson, around the corner in 2004.

Sarah McNally: When we moved out of the neighborhood last year, we moved to SoHo, and Luc sent flowers. It was just the classiest person, kind of ambassador for Nolita.

Ryan Kailath: That's one reason McNally chose to publish the new book as a sort of oral history of Nolita. Luc Levy credits the location with his success, along with the vibe he's created and the people he's hired. In the early days, one of his regulars would drop his little girl off for the waitresses to babysit.

Isobel Brown: My first memories here are like 4, 5, 6 years old, and I really feel like I grew up here in this café .

Ryan Kailath: Isobel Brown is now 22, and she's the general manager. She also wrote the new book, compiling stories from dozens of interviews.

Levy says it's weird. He should be proud to have kept a restaurant running for 30 years, but it didn't really hit him until he held the finished book in his hands.

Luc Lévy: It's almost like your first album. It's like, okay, it's here, it exists, and it's great. It's wonderful.

Ryan Kailath: Café Gitane: 30 Years is out on November 27th from McNally Jackson Editions.

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Janae Pierre: That's WNYC's Ryan Kailath. Thanks for listening to NYC NOW from WNYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Janae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.

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