“Local Law No. 38 prohibits commercial establishments from unnecessarily opening their doors while air conditioning is on, in an effort to conserve energy and reduce strain on the electric grid. The legislation provides for escalating civil penalties for successive violations and specifies the Department of Consumer Affairs as the enforcing authority. Intro. 264 was approved by City Council on Aug. 14, 2008 and signed in to law by Mayor Bloomberg on Sept. 3, 2008.” -NY League of Conservation Voters

If you’ve never experienced the sheer insanity of it, here is a great blog post about a person’s walking tour of open door retail stores flooding the street with A/C in 2009. Here is a NYT article 9 stores that were fined $200-$400 for leaving their door open in the summer of 2010.  These are single day incidents of single locations – but it happens everywhere in NYC, summer and winter and it makes me crazy!

Unfortunately, as this is not an energy savings law, it is a ‘let’s keep the grid from unnecessarily failing’ law, this does not apply to retail doors propped open in the winter letting out heat.

Will someone please make a reporting ap – so that next summer w my new i-phone, I can report every door I see propped open and do some citizen surveillance of common sense!

Please?