NYC ordinance banning ‘body size discrimination’ goes into effect

In early October, I wrote a blog on a social media “fatfluencer” whose very serious demands for widened hotel hallways and extra airplane seats for the morbidly obese had rolled her into my sphere of awareness. The young woman, who is in her mid-twenties, was petitioning businesses to adopt a “customer-of-size policy” and urging private establishments to provide “size-inclusive” amenities so that ultra-fat people could enjoy the same things as everyone else.

But, at the time I penned the essay, I had no idea that in New York City, an ordinance of this very nature was already on the books, and now it’s gone into effect. From a report out at the New York Post yesterday:

A new city law that bans discriminating against someone because of their height or weight went into effect last week, six months after Mayor Eric Adams first signed the legislation.

Here come the lawsuits! Landlords, business owners, and taxpayers beware.

How soon until a fat tenant demands changes to the living space on the dime of the property-owner with the full force of the judicial system behind him/her?

Physics is so discriminatory. So too, apparently, is gravity. *grins It's a good thing I don't live or invest in a screwy place like NYC.

WALL-E... here we come!

Like other laws related to disabilities, if they want an accommodation, they pay for it, perhaps?.

I don't like to see it written into the law, but you do have to be a bit careful about heavy people because some cases of overweight are medical, which more than likely falls under the disability protection. ( ie: acromegaly )

I'm pretty sure morbidly obese people can get onto disability, so there again, protected under disability laws.

Why would someone be "rejected" for an apartment because of their size? I mean, really.... I have had a few larger people very clearly look at a small one bed apartment that had a small stand-up shower that they (themselves) indicated that certainly would not work for them.

There is no possible way to make that any larger unless you tear down walls and move another persons kitchen and totally redesign the property itself.

I didn't say a word to the person... they just knew it.

Also... it doesn't surprise me that NYC (or any other law writing goofball) doesn't write something up that is already protected because they want to get their names out on something to make it look as though they accomplished something.

One of my best friends in HS had a very overweight brother who drove his car and actually broke his driver seat because he leaned back too far and it bent. He was pretty ticked off and couldn't fix the seat. He ended up driving it "bent" to the right for a few years and finally just sold the car (you couldn't really tell unless you got in and started driving it down the road then went "what in the heck is going on with this seat"? haha

W,

NYC craziness!

I would expect the REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION policy to apply - resident make make and pay for reasonable changes. Think “adding a wheelchair ramp.”

Airlines SHOULD have a width requirement. I just spent a flight with my neighbor’s THIGH MEAT rubbing against me, no matter how far over I leaned. Her body was squeezing out under the armrest. A simple flat panel under the armrest would have given me some privacy.

We had to it our carry on bags in a measuring box, so how about the person.

“You must be this narrow to fly”.

W,

NYC craziness!

I would expect the REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION policy to apply - resident make make and pay for reasonable changes. Think “adding a wheelchair ramp.”

Airlines SHOULD have a width requirement. I just spent a flight with my neighbor’s THIGH MEAT rubbing against me, no matter how far over I leaned. Her body was squeezing out under the armrest. A simple flat panel under the armrest would have given me some privacy.

We had to it our carry on bags in a measuring box, so how about the person.

“You must be this narrow to fly”.

Yo, Brad.

That must have made for a loooooong flight.

Did ya chew the fat / have conversations or were things

I support a "Fat Tax" surcharge for rentals. More of a surcharge to account for the added wear and tear on a property:

Toilets, Stairs, Handrails, Floor Boards. It all accelerates the end of the useful life of all of these things and often leads to excessive maintenance.

We have a place that seemed to attract fat people for a while. The last several were very heavy women. The floor in front of the kitchen sink actually sank because they stood there a lot and we had to replace it. Next tenant the bathtub cracked when the floor sank a bit in the bathroom and had to be replaced. Some other issues but can't remember them all.

I installed safety bars in the bathroom of an apartment to help aid a blind girl. She was all of 100 pounds. Then after her tenancy ended, the new tenant was a 500 pounder. I added in the lease that the safety bars were installed to aid a tiny blind women and weren't designed for him. There is a safety margin of 200% on safety bars due to a sudden shift of weight during a fall or slide -- the his safety margin needed to be rated at 1000 pound, so he couldn't rely on these bars for help.

Within a month he got drunk and took a bath with a girlfriend, she was over 600 pounds. They both used the safety bar to get the up from a deep bathtub and the bar came out from the wall. I was sued the next week....