By Evan Simko-Bednarski
New York Daily News
NEW YORK — A citywide effort to enforce e-bike regulations netted 136 violations across the city’s e-bike shops, the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection announced Thursday.
The enforcement blitz, conducted in August and September, turned up dozens of shops illicitly selling e-vehicle batteries that weren’t properly certified, as well as dozens selling e-bikes and e-scooters capable of illegal speeds.
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“New Yorkers deserve to feel safe knowing that the devices they see in their communities meet the City’s safety requirements,” DCWP Commissioner Samuel A.A. Levine said in a statement Thursday. ”Our citywide sweep sends a clear message that businesses cannot put New Yorkers at risk just to make a profit.”
“DCWP will continue to hold business accountable and use every enforcement tool available to ensure compliance with our City’s laws,” he added.
The DCWP crackdown assessed more than 200 shops in the city between Aug. 1 and Sept. 30, according to the department.
Inspectors found 46 instances of shops selling batteries without required safety certifications from Underwriters Laboratories — a violation of city law. Fifty-five shops were found to be in violation of a city law requiring them to display battery safety information for consumers.
In 35 cases, inspectors found shops selling e-bikes capable of traveling more than 25 mph or e-scooters capable of traveling faster than 20 mph — neither of which are legal on NYC streets.
A total of 77 summonses were issued in connection with the violations, an agency spokesperson said.
The announcement of the enforcement operation comes a week after a lithium-ion battery in an e-moped exploded in an apartment in Mott Haven in the Bronx, killing three young boys and their father’s girlfriend.
The dad, the fire’s only survivor — who had been given the moped by a friend to help him find work — was sent to the burn intensive-care unit at Harlem Hospital.
Lithium-ion batteries were also found at the site of a deadly Thursday morning inferno in Brooklyn that killed six people — though it was not yet known Thursday afternoon if the batteries had caused the blaze.
There have been more than 400 lithium-ion battery-related fires in New York City this year, according to the FDNY.
Low-quality batteries that haven’t undergone testing for a safety certification are more likely to cause a fire.
The crackdown also took aim at electric bikes and scooters with illegally powerful motors, which have been implicated in multiple fatalities this year.
Gabe Nacato, 17, was killed this summer after the illegal, high-powered e-moped he was riding crashed into an SUV near City Hall.
Earlier this year, in May, Francis Delvalle, 39, lost control of the illegal high-speed stand-up scooter he was riding on the Queensboro Bridge bike path and slammed head-on into cyclist Dmytro Stechenko, 35, who was riding a pedal bike. Both men died from the collision.
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