Big Apple hoteliers plan to raise $20 million and launch a new lobbying group to fight a City Council bill they say would devastate the local lodging industry.
Organizers told The Post that the New York Hotel Owners Association plans to maintain its $15 million annual budget to continue lobbying and education efforts.
“This job-killing bill has accomplished the nearly impossible: galvanizing the diverse interests of New York City’s hoteliers,” a representative from HONY said.
“This is an existential threat to the industry itself and the livelihoods of tens of thousands of workers.”
The dramatic move comes after Democratic City Councilwoman Julie Mennin proposed new hotel licensing rules last month that would prohibit hotel operators from outsourcing service jobs or force them to directly hire at least the majority of workers with union contracts.
Mennin, who sources say is seeking to become the next City Council speaker, introduced the bill at the urging of the influential hotel workers union, which has donated more than $700,000 to city council members since 2021.
Hoteliers say the bill would only increase hotel prices in New York, already some of the most expensive in the nation, and put them out of business.
“The proposed bill would impose arbitrary and burdensome operational obligations and severely limit our ability to effectively manage our business,” HONY representatives said.
“This ignores the unique needs of our approximately 700 hotels and threatens to erode the flexibility we need to operate in a highly challenging market like New York.
“We will not negotiate on this bill at all as it is literally a death sentence for our industry,” the representative said.
In addition to its lobbying efforts, the group said it plans to create an “annual hospitality scorecard” to rate New York state elected officials on whether they support opposition to industry priorities and use it to inform New Yorkers.
HONY said it plans to work closely with broader groups, including the New York City Hotel Association and the New York City Hospitality Alliance.
After widespread protests, Governor Menin amended the bill on Friday to include an exception ensuring hotel restaurants, bars and nightclubs would not be affected.
The amended bill states that the subcontracting restrictions no longer apply to security guards, but will continue to apply to reception and housing staff.
Vijay Dhandapani, president and CEO of the New York City Hotel Association, slammed the proposed amendments on Sunday, saying they remain unacceptable.
“The drafters of this bill have continued to act in bad faith by making changes without taking any expert input from the industry after claiming to pause to discuss the many flaws in the bill,” said Dhandapani, who had earlier called the licensing bill a “nuclear bomb” dropped on the hospitality industry.
“Proponents of this bill say it will help workers, but in reality it will hurt far more workers than it helps.”
Of the city’s 700 hotels, 400 are not unionized.
Mennin declined to comment.
The Hotel Industry Council predicted the licensing bill would pass over objections from business owners, arguing that a move to increase regulatory oversight of the hospitality industry would benefit workers and customers.
The measure appears to have enough votes to pass the City Council, but falls short of the 34 votes needed for the mayor to overturn it.
Mayor Eric Adams, who received significant support from labor unions during his 2012 mayoral election, has yet to take a position on the controversial bill.
“If a few billionaire owners think they can spend millions of dollars to intimidate the City Council into rejecting basic health, safety and human trafficking regulations that many other major cities already have in place, they’re wasting their money,” HTC spokesman Austin Shafran said.
“You can be sure that the City Council will stand on the side of ordinary New Yorkers, victims of sexual assault, and exploited workers over the babies of a few billionaires.”
