When we decided to check in on the status of the proposed bill to regulate New York’s exotic dancers, it was partially in the interest of pleasuring ourselves with some droll double entendres. But it seems you’ve got to get up pretty early in the morning to beat Daily News Bronx Borough Chief Bob Kappstatter to the pun: A bill that would license exotic dancers has been bumping and grinding its way ever so slowly......

Brooklyn Assemblyman Felix Ortiz (D, 51st District) wants to ban alcohol ads on buses and subways. The ads provide just $3 to $5 million of the $100 million in revenue the Metropolitan Transportation Authority gets from ad sales and the MTA has not taken a position on the proposed legislation. The state’s Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services did express support for the legislation calling it "consistent with our strategy of preventing alcoholism......

State Senator Carl Marcellino of Oyster Bay and Assemblyman Felix Ortiz of Brooklyn are co-sponsoring a bill to stop drivers from text messaging while driving. Last month, an SUV driven by a 17-year-old girl crashed into a tractor trailer upstate in Ontario County. The SUV's driver, Bailey Goodman, and the four friends in the car all died on impact (the tractor trailer's driver was uninjured). Investigators found that text messages had been sent from and......

Next for T&A: Albany style pork? We have to give Assemblyman Felix Ortiz props for thinking of creative ways to increase revenue, even if it's hilarious. The Post reports that the Brooklyn politician is proposing that strippers need to be licensed and have permits, or else they'll be fined as will any establishment that employees unlicensed strippers. The Post has details: In his bill sponsor memo, Ortiz said his proposal is meant to protect human-trafficking......

There's a good look at how cellphone triangulation works in the Daily News today, in relation to how police were able to determine that the Imette St. Guillen murder's "prime suspect" Darryl Littlejohn was in the vicinity of where her body was eventually found. We'd been curious about how the technology works (sure, we'd seen it "used" in TV shows or mentioned and got the basic idea), but we didn't realize locations can be determined......

Assemblyman Felix Ortiz, best known to Gothamist as the Assemblyman who wants school kids' weights to be graded, is looking to ban smoking from NYC housing projects. Okay, it's really just a measure to make 50% of housing projects smoke-free, but the goal would be to make housing projects completely smoke-free by 2010. Ortiz's argument is that hotels have smoking and non-smoking rooms, and "housing complexes are not so much different than hotels." Gothamist understands......

It's all the rage for state lawmakers to ask for things to be graded. First, it was Assemblyman Felix Ortiz asking that kids get graded on their weight. Now, State Senator Jeff Klein wants NYC restaurants to be graded on their cleanliness - and that the grades should be posted at the establishments. Klein's main complaint is that the Department of Health's website that allows diners to check on restaurants' health inspection is too cumbersome......

So, Assemblyman Felix Ortiz from Brooklyn wants to put weigh-ins along with grades on report cards, as part of a statewide initiative to prevent childhood obesity. While it's incredibly important for parents to be aware of their children's health issues, some NYC public schools don't even have the resources to give kids the educations they deserve, so what will an extra $1.5 million to a state-wide program bring? If the state might be willing to......