GRADE PENDING PRESS

A postcard from earth, & some updates 💌 ❤️❤️❤️❤️ Dear GPPers, It’s been a long time but I wanted you to know how much this project meant to me, to have a space to collectively care about something and (slowly but steadily) muscle it into reality, despite persistent waves in the opposite direction. I also wanted to share that it’s not over but evolving, continuing on in the background. In the meantime, events of the last few years have led to a new project I’m equally excited about. It’s intended to be more expansive, as each of us are when we refuse to limit ourselves; starting with what’s been broken, remembering what’s been underneath, growing up and out of it, it’s an emergence. I’m making space for us, all of us. It’s called @room1001.journal . There will be essays tackling broader topics of humanity, how information travels, the stories we choose to tell, hopefully a place to breathe a little, a break from the noise. There will be book recs (including a lot of fiction, novels & poetry), interviews, & hopefully, wide-ranging discussions. Hope to see you there, Jessie ✌️ *I realize I said hope thrice there but that’s what it takes, along with clarity against the tides of fight & flight

What is legal, and what is safe? We’ve been exploring these terms for over a year now — even longer offline. It’s time we went deep into the food we are allowed to eat, and the food deemed legally unsafe by those deciding such things. This is a pineapple fruitcake made for astronauts. The beginning of HACCP (Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Points, a system widely accepted by local health departments for the last decade) is credited to war and space travel — times and places where we needed to guarantee that microbes would not survive. This is why we fear live cultures, even if they’re healthy bacteria, the kind that makes food taste good and age well, no matter their benefits. Constipation was likely the least of a space traveler’s worries. This system of identifying risks easily translated to large-scale production of the convenience foods our parents and grandparents would soon learn to rely on. And now your corner bar is expected to have a HACCP plan for how to safely make a ham sandwich. If you like where we’re going with this, reach out to get involved & stay tuned.✌️ — PINEAPPLE FRUITCAKE compressed to be flown on Apollo 11, eaten directly from the bag. [National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution / Eric Long]

*Rewind* I think we forgot how this was supposed to go. Remember when we were on our way to making this an epidemic? 👉 A handful of these friendly (2-layer, 3D, cotton) reminders are in our non-profit shop, linked in bio, with a mandate-redux discount, $25. 👋 [Please Wait to Be Served] — P.S. We’ve been quiet around here because our next printing is going to be a little bigger and broader reaching. See our last few posts for how to get involved. We’d love to hear from you.✌️💌

We want to hear from you! If you’ve ever felt like you couldn’t talk with the NYC DOH about an ingredient or cooking method you knew was safe despite what’s legal, let’s talk. DM, e-mail, or share anonymously through the “add a recipe” button on our site, linked in bio. See our last two posts for more on what this is all about.✌️

The short answer: we do. 👉 Swipe for further reading, and the last slide for an invitation to contribute to a future printing. ___ Why is it so hard to change the food code? Because it originates with the FDA. Your local DOH adopts the rules and decides how to enforce them. This is why some cities have fines and others have conversations. If you’ve ever felt like you couldn’t talk with the NYC DOH about an ingredient or cooking method you knew was safe despite what‘s legal, we want to hear from you. For the time being, we are leaving out HACCP as a factor for legality and purely sticking to the DOH code. [Since the DOH does not provide templates, HACCP is yet another way operators are on their own to define safety or incur cost, through fines or hiring a third-party consultant.] More on that later! COOKS, BARTENDERS, OPERATORS: DM, e-mail, or drop an anonymous tip through the ”add a recipe” button on our site.

We’re going deep here. GPP at its core. Fine reduction is only the first step. It’s not about the money, but what the money means. It is intended to open a conversation between inspectors and operators. What comes next, we hope, is a conversation about how we determine what is legal. We are committed to understanding how a society determines what is safe, and most importantly, what is worth risk. This is just a brief. More to come over the next week. Reach out if you’d like to get involved.✌️❤️

Intro. 2233 is just the beginning for us. Tomorrow we’ll talk about our long-term goals and what this means for our work ahead. Of the 185 penalties revised in Intro. 2233, these will directly affect food service establishments as defined by the NYC Food Code [Article 81]. There are additional amendments that will help mobile vendors. Please refer to the link on our last slide to see the full breakdown. Once signed into law, a few sections of this bill will go into effect immediately, most within 120 days and the rest over the next fiscal year, with the last on June 15, 2022. The DOH specifically has 180 days. Most of the DOH’s revised violations will come with a cure period of 7 days and fines reduced by half. The total fiscal effect of this bill is estimated to be a reduction in revenue of approximately $8.6M and $13M over the next two years. Types of offenses that will come with a cure period or warning, and a reduction in fines for repeat violations: * Signage * Open staff containers (drinking/eating) * Hair coverings * Dented packages * Cloths stored in sanitizer * Cutting boards (no knife marks) * Floors/Ceilings (no holes or cracks) * Lighting (insufficient, unshielded, or not shatterproof in heat) * Improper trash removal * Facility not 100% vermin-proof (*This does not mean there is any evidence of vermin on site, but the DOH believes that vermin could enter the building and that a proper plan is not in place.) * Plumbing repairs First-time violations with reduced fines: * Food Handler’s license held by supervisor: ($400 from $600) * License/permit to operate (starting at $25 from $50) * Grade not conspicuously posted: ($500 from $500-1K) __ To view the complete bill, find the Committee Report from 6/17/21 listed with Intro. 2233 on the City Council’s site: legistar.council.nyc.gov.

#intro2233 passed in City Council today! 185 violations will come with a warning and cure period instead of a fine for first-time offenses that do not pose an immediate public health threat. This includes the DOH, along with Sanitation, Consumer Affairs and other city agencies, and is now on its way to the mayor’s office for a signature. Along with #intro2233, council passed the partner bill #intro2234, which provides relief for fines that were issued on or after March 7, 2020. Stay tuned for more on which violations made the cut, and where we go from here. We’ve still got over 5,000 on the books across the city’s 15 agencies, so this is just the beginning but a good sign for the work ahead. Thank you to CM @msvanessa77 , chair @markgjonajny , @thenycalliance , & all of the vendors who shared their words with us in support of this bill, linked in bio!

Our interactive NYC BUDGET MAP for FY 2022, which begins July 1 and could pass anytime in June, on our site now — all the need-to-know line items (tax vs penalties), plus audio clips from key council hearings from the last few months. 🎧

Our city’s obsession with penalties runs so deep that some of you may be asking, will we be safe without fines? Because we believe in a better system of prevention, and because we want our vendors to survive through this next year, some FAQs about #intro2233 for diners: Will #intro2233 change any rules for food safety? 👉 No. But don’t fines force restaurants to follow the rules? 👉 If that were true, we wouldn’t be able to count on fines as revenue. Restaurants in LA have letter grades but do not get fined, though the city is currently looking at changing that for COVID protocols after restaurants have had sufficient warnings. Monetary penalties for first-time offenses, no matter how minor, is a NYC-specific obsession. How much do fines even cost? 👉 Anywhere from $200-$1200 per visit. In recent years, agencies have raised the minimum, which they can do without city council approval. #intro2233 seeks to lower the maximum cost range for remaining fines. Other than pests, what do restaurants usually get fined for? 👉 Uncovered staff drinks (usually water). Too many knife marks on cutting boards (used cutting boards, no matter how clean). Simple repairs, like holes or cracks in the floor. Won’t restaurants hide things from the DOH if the inspections are scheduled? 👉 You might not want to go to any restaurants upstate because their inspections are scheduled. — GOT MORE QUESTIONS? Visit the link in bio for Vendors for #INTRO2233 to hear from vendors directly about what this bill means to them. DM, e-mail, or comment below!

💌💌💌 Bar Meridian, 6.12.21 Honey’s, 6.6.21 Hunky Dory, 5.25.21 — Thank you for hosting us @bar_meridian_nyc @honeysbrooklyn @hunkydorybk , and to everyone who came by to talk about public health & DOH reform! We love you all. ❤️ If you weren’t able to make it to one of our events and would like us to mail a postcard to City Hall on your behalf, DM your message and we’ll send it on its way.

Find us at @bar_meridian_nyc this SAT, 6/12! All materials needed will be on site to help you write a postcard to City Hall, plus items from our non-profit shop (pamphlets, masks, tees!) in support of @serviceworkerscoalition @streetvendorproject ✌️❤️ #intro2233