NYC Coronavirus Enforcement Dipped Before Hotspots Emerged: Data

NEW YORK CITY — Flare ups of coronavirus cases in Brooklyn and Queens neighborhoods followed weeks of declining enforcement actions by city agencies, 311 data shows.

But complaints over social distancing and reopening businesses breaking safety measures fell as well, indicating New Yorkers as a whole grew more lax and less vigilant when it came to the virus.

The dips in enforcement and watchfulness started in August and continued through September — the month hotspots sprang up in nine city ZIP codes and surrounding areas now under localized lockdowns.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, even before the outbreaks, repeatedly chided the city for lack of enforcement. He also pinned blame for protests in Orthodox Jewish communities on, among other things, the city failing to enforce past lockdown rules.

"That's why this rule seems harsh because they never followed the first rules and because they were never enforced," he said. "That's why I said to all of you 57 times the local governments have to enforce the rules. They were never enforced in these clusters."

Data shows a slightly-more nuanced, if somewhat incomplete, picture of city enforcement efforts in those areas and across all five boroughs.

To start, complaints to 311 over social distancing peaked in May, with about 25,000 in total. NYPD officers at that time handled all of them, and often with a heavy hand focused on people of color.

Those complaints dropped to roughly 10,000 in June and 2,300 in July, when it appears NYPD stopped social distancing enforcement. Since then, only the city parks department has handled those calls, which topped at 626 in September.

Of those, only 136 led to corrective action or remedy, according to the data.

The 22 ZIP codes covering coronavirus hotspots accounted for roughly 10,000 social distancing complaints overall. But those all but dried up in September, when 311 logged just 133 complaints.

The city's steady retreat from social distancing complaining and enforcement coincided with its gradual reopening.

All 32,659 complaints about businesses not complying with reopening rules went to the Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement, according to 311 data.

Those complaints peaked in July with 10,861 and slightly dipped each month since, data shows.

Enforcement actions hit a crescendo that month as well, with 1,923 violations or warnings given, according to data. They fell to 1,512 the next month.

And in September? There were 528 violations or warnings handed out to non-compliant businesses, the data states.

The city's 311 data isn't a complete picture. For one, it only documents complaints and actions from them.

It also doesn't appear to reflect enforcement actions by the state focused on bars and restaurants — an effort that generated scores of high-profile closures.

But, by and large, it appears to confirm at least part of Cuomo's assessment as to the city's hands-off approach to enforcement.

"The longer you don't follow the rule, the higher the infection rate spreads and the more obvious it becomes," Cuomo said.