When City Smells Turn Into Odor Violations

Signalman Nick Carter holding hand on nose to signal hotbox smell. NY, 1943.

New York City is filled with unique little scents, like 'em or not, and each turn of the corner can bring a new top note to your olfactory collection. Some say smell is the most nostalgic of all senses, so maybe one day down the road you'll get a whiff of hot fishy garbage and it'll take you back to all those sweltering summer days you spent in Chinatown. But for now, these smells are just a nuisance to some—and according to the Wall Street Journal, 311 gets 1000 odor complaints per year, pertaining to restaurants alone. Each one is then
investigated by the Department of Environment Protection, and only a small fraction get violations in the end.

One 65-year-old TriBeCa man, Allan Tannenbaum, told the paper that he suffers from "smell blasts" from a nearby Indian restaurant called Salaam Bombay—"Let's say you're having some cereal for breakfast and they start cooking. All of a sudden your Cheerios taste like tandoori chicken."

The restaurant owner, however, notes how some people love the smell, explaining, "We have an Indian restaurant and somebody doesn't like Indian food smell. But most of my customers come in and they feel the smell is so great, very tempting." And therein lies the problem: what smells bad to one, may smell like a delicious dinner to another. Case in point, one odor complaint made over the past month was against a bread shop in Carroll Gardens (we can only assume this was placed by a member of the Atkins army).

Some restaurants have spent thousands on specialists to change the direction of their exhaust system so their smell moves away from nearby residents, and Salaam Bombay's owner may rack up a bill close to $35K in efforts to appease Mr. Tannenbaum, who has caused quite a stink himself at community board meetings. If you think that's extreme, remember back to 2007, when one Upper East Side condo board sued a Subway sandwich franchise owner for half a million bucks because of the smell!

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By Jen Carlson in News on June 30, 2010 1:14 PM

Comments [rss]

Reflect

Funny, teusday i just came close to upchucking on the north west corner of 23rd and sixth.

I dont know if it was the gutter or a trash can, but ive worked changing locks in morgues and never smelled what i did on that corner.

maatthias

So when do "city smells become odor violations"? Bad headline... not even an attempt to answer.

Cannibal

Just do enough coke and problem solved!!

Alex

South side of Broome St between Eldridge & Allen is the smelliest place I know of. It's hard to pinpoint, but it's mostly the smell of fermented tofu mixed with rotting dumplings.

Cannibal

Chinatown smells like China? Surprising!

Whammo

It's one thing when the smell is freshly cooked food, quite another when it is rotten and decaying.

inoyourider

With my neighbors in my last place, there was no difference.

soxinthecity

Don't ever walk down 3rd Ave in Bay Ridge, between 74th, and 75 Streets on a hot summer morning. If you do, the stench of sour milk from the garbage left on the sidewalk in front of the Indian restaurant will be with you for the entire day.

MT

Whoever was there first should get preference. If what's-his-name moved to the neighborhood after the Indian restaurant was already there, he shouldn't be able to complain. If however, a restaurant or a bar wants to open up in a neighborhood they should design the place from the beginning to accomodate the existing residents.

Fin!

AndrewODonnell

I used to work in the GRACE Building across from Bryant Park. There is a Chipotle on that block (42nd b/t 5th & 6th)with an exhaust fan. That exhaust fan blasts the naastiest-scent of warm Chipotle-excrement that I've ever had the displeasure of knowing...seriously, check it out for yourself. Thanks.

l3iodeez

Fact is, in NYC we live in close quarters. Suck it up or move to the burbs. Or to a high-rise. But you have no god-given right not to smell stuff in NYC.