Restaurant Law Blog

A restaurant/landlord dispute in New York City is forcing the closure of the legendary Oak Room, the New York Times reported.

A Manhattan restaurant attorney can help ensure the survival of your business in many ways, but nothing is more basic than making sure that your lease agreement is not a ticking time bomb. Expansion, leasehold improvements, permitted uses, hours of operation, renewal clauses and rent increases are just a few of the considerations when designing or renewing a lease.

In a rare demonstration of clarity New York State's Department of Taxation and Finance recently released an interpretive bulletin for restaurants, bars, taverns, cafes and other fodd service establishments which they hope will clarify when sales tax is to be charged. 

The release of this bulletin follows New York's 2010 audit of Bruegger's Bagel Bakery Franchises for their failure to remit sales tax on "ready-to-eat" food.  The rule is that "ready-to-eat" food is subject to sales tax, but never before was there a clear definition of what "ready-to-eat" meant. 

Independent Contractors are commonplace in the construction industry.  The practice is encouraged by the need for specialized expertise or larger labor forces on particular projects.  For these and other reasons, contractors often seek to engage independent contractors on a temporary basis in place of hiring full-time employees.  The obvious benefit to this is that while hourly compensation rate for an independent contractor can exceed that on a full-time employee, the employer is not faced with the need to provide fridge benefits and can maintain a small workforce during downtime without the trauma that accompanies the discharge of employees no longer needed for a specific contract.  The obvious downside to such an arrangement is that when an independent contractor is injured on the jobsite, he may not fall under a company’s Worker’s Compensation (“WC”) policy enabling that worker to seek recourse against the company through a personal injury lawsuit.  Indeed, an injured worker employed by a temporary manpower agency (or his general employer) often files a claim for WC benefits under his general employer’s policy and then turns around and sues the construction outfit which was using his services on an independent contractor basis.

Our office routinely gets telephone calls from people seeking information on New York’s Lemon Law.   Below is a synopsis of New York’s Used Car Lemon Law Statute.

As of this past Sunday, August 15, 2010, drivers convicted of DWI or DWAI in the State of New York will be required to install in their vehicle, and all vehicles which they own or have access to (household vehicles), an ignition interlock device. For those who do not know, an ignitiion interlock device is a device which is must be blown into by the vehicle’s operator, before the vehicle will start. Quite simply, the device measures your sobriety, and if your blood alcohol level measures above.025, the vehicle will not start.