Conflict over menus left in NY apartment houses

[Pan]

Today's New York Newsday has an article about an assault on a delivery man who wanted to leave menus for a Chinese restaurant inside a residential building:

Menu drop-off ends in severe beating

Chen Zhen Ping wanted to deliver menus to the stately Harlem co-op. Naim Shala told him to get lost.

By the time it was over, Ping, 23, a Chinese immigrant, had been beaten and Shala, the building superintendent, and another man, a psychiatrist who lives in the building, were under arrest for felony assault.[...]

I don't think any Society members will react with anything but repugnance over what sounds like a despicable assault. I wish Mr. Ping a speedy recovery and hope the alleged perpetrators, if duly convicted, receive a jail sentence or/and punishing fine for their misbehavior. And I'll note that even assuming that Shala's lawyer is giving an accurate account, you don't have the right to beat up a deliveryman for "trespassing" in New York.

That said, the issue of menus in residential buildings is a sensitive one in New York. In the East Village, there are many establishments that deliver. Some buildings provide envelopes (originally packing slips from UPS or some other mail company) marked "menus" to facilitate the orderly placement of delivery menus in the entryway; others do not, and I've noticed some buildings on the Upper West Side in particular (I think) that have "No Menus" signs, often in English, Spanish, and Chinese. Some establishments take it upon themselves to tape up paper containers with menus in them and leave those just outside the entrances to buildings in the East Village. Others leave menus on the floor of the entryway, which is messy. And then there are the places which, when sending a deliveryman to one apartment, put menus under the doors of other apartments (that annoys me, as I'm almost never interested in those menus and just have to throw them in the recycling bin). Another annoying thing is when faraway places leave delivery menus and when called say that they have a minimum of $20 or more for Chinese food, for example. If you don't deliver reasonably-priced food from such a distance, why are you wasting our time with your menus? I'll note that Sammy's seems to have realized they were wasting their money leaving menus this far east, so that problem is somewhat self-limiting.

My feeling is that ideally, there should be a place for menus to be left on the ground floor in an orderly fashion. "No menus" is unhelpful to people who in fact benefit from delivery menus (and don't have Internet accounts enabling them to go to menupages.com). I don't want menus left on the floor of the entryway, and I don't want deliverymen leaving gratuitous menus under my door.

But to assault someone over menus??!

[hshiau]

Our building has a doorman and a concierge. No delivery people are allowed up without an accompanying doorman. This way, they aren't wandering around the building dropping off menus under every door. It works great for us.

[Luckylies]

oh man, two people at the door when I'm in my pj's or drunk (the doorman and the concierge) that sounds so unfun... but, actually I'd probably prefer that as right now the person who delivers me my jamaican food is pretty scary...also, the delivery guy who brings pastrami..i hate that they have me phone number. A few have called me and really scared me. they know where i live...it really freaks me out. about the menus...my doorman chases the delivery guys around the building yelling, it drives him nuts..it's really funny. (non violent)

[hshiau]

oh man, two people at the door when I'm in my pj's or drunk (the doorman and the concierge) that sounds so unfun... but, actually I'd probably prefer that as right now the person who delivers me my jamaican food is pretty scary...also, the delivery guy who brings pastrami..i hate that they have me phone number. A few have called me and really scared me. they know where i live...it really freaks me out. about the menus...my doorman chases the delivery guys around the building yelling, it drives him nuts..it's really funny. (non violent)

←

If you're in your pj's and drunk when you've ordered a food delivery, I guess you'd be lucky the doorman was with the delivery man!

[oakapple]

Our building has a doorman and a concierge.  No delivery people are allowed up without an accompanying doorman.  This way, they aren't wandering around the building dropping off menus under every door.  It works great for us.

←

What's the great evil in menus slipped under the door? They're a lot more useful than most of the junk mail I receive, and I never know when I'm going to want food delivered. I put all of those menus in a drawer, so they'll be there when I need them.

[hshiau]

Our building has a doorman and a concierge.  No delivery people are allowed up without an accompanying doorman.  This way, they aren't wandering around the building dropping off menus under every door.  It works great for us.

←

What's the great evil in menus slipped under the door? They're a lot more useful than most of the junk mail I receive, and I never know when I'm going to want food delivered. I put all of those menus in a drawer, so they'll be there when I need them.

←

I would get 500 menus with many duplicates. Also, I have an 8 yr old daughter and would prefer not to have strangers wandering around the building.

[SobaAddict70]

Our building has a doorman and a concierge.  No delivery people are allowed up without an accompanying doorman.  This way, they aren't wandering around the building dropping off menus under every door.  It works great for us.

←

What's the great evil in menus slipped under the door? They're a lot more useful than most of the junk mail I receive, and I never know when I'm going to want food delivered. I put all of those menus in a drawer, so they'll be there when I need them.

←

The great evil is that if a resident is not at home for an extended period of time, then that's almost an invitation to burglarize an apartment.

It's also litter, if you think about it.

I can appreciate the value of menus but after a while, it becomes less of a service and more of an infestation.

Soba

[Liz B-F]

The great evil is that if a resident is not at home for an extended period of time, then that's almost an invitation to burglarize an apartment.

It's also litter, if you think about it.

I love in a doorman-free, walkup building with a video intercom system...there's a guy who gains access to the building by buzzing up over and over again to random apartments and saying he's a UPS delivery man. I work at home, so I find his approach unethical and really, really annoying.

The beating story is horrifying any way you slice it, and there's no excuse for beating anyone, ever, and obviously that super is felonious and scary and nuts....but, that said, if a menu-delivery-person is asked by the super or a tenant NOT to come to the building/the person's apartment, they should not come back, and they should not have to be asked more than once.

I wish my building had a "menu envelope" by the gate--there wouldn't be random strangers walking around the halls, and those of us who wanted to pick up a takeout menu could grab ONE of each (instead of having eighty Fresco Tortillas menus.)

[cakewalk]

I live in a building with a doorman and concierge, but they don't escort the deliverymen up to the apartment that ordered food (too many apartments in the building), they call up to the apt., and if the tenant says yes, then they just send the deliveryman up with the food. So there are always menus, and I don't really mind them even though I very rarely order out. I figure these guys -- and the restaurants -- also have to earn a living. It's limited though. If the delivery is on the 10th floor, they can distribute menus on the 10th floor. If the concierge sees them on another floor over the closed-circuit security system, they get a warning. If it happens a second time, the building will no longer allow that restaurant to deliver, and they inform the tenants not to order from that particular restaurant. This system works pretty well. The only time I got annoyed was when (several years ago) I opened my door one morning to find a whole pile of menus sitting there. I guess the deliveryman just got tired and dumped the whole bunch. Now that is truly littering in front of my door.

[Pan]

Our building has a doorman and a concierge.  No delivery people are allowed up without an accompanying doorman.  This way, they aren't wandering around the building dropping off menus under every door.  It works great for us.

←

Undoubtedly. But there are neighborhoods like the East Village that are mostly tenements, and we have only a buzzer and a couple of doors separating us from the outside. I think video intercoms are uncommon in this neighborhood, too.

It seems to me that for whatever reason, deliverymen have been putting gratuitous menus under my door a lot less in recent months. I caught some of them doing that while I was at home and told them not to do it, but I somewhat doubt that made the difference.

[ghostrider]

Our building has a doorman and a concierge.  No delivery people are allowed up without an accompanying doorman.  This way, they aren't wandering around the building dropping off menus under every door.  It works great for us.

←

What's the great evil in menus slipped under the door? They're a lot more useful than most of the junk mail I receive, and I never know when I'm going to want food delivered. I put all of those menus in a drawer, so they'll be there when I need them.

←

The great evil is that if a resident is not at home for an extended period of time, then that's almost an invitation to burglarize an apartment.

Soba

←

OTOH, that might alert someone that there's a corpse rotting in an apartment before the smell does.

Ah I miss Manhattan.

Soba's point is actually quite valid cuz a lot of apartment doors don't have enough of a gap for the menus to be slipped under & they they do become a "nobody home" advertisement.

[SobaAddict70]

There have been stories (I kid you not!) of people coming home after having been away for several months at a time, only to find that they can't push their apartment door open because of the sheer mass of menus lodged directly behind.

I'm not sure if this state of affairs has continued but at one point in time in the (distant) past, it was a quality of life issue in the UWS.

Soba

[Gastro888]

Oh my gosh, that's terrible. *shakes head* I can understand that building managers don't want clutter but that's horrible. Christ.

I remember the huge NO MENUS sign posted in the dorms at Barnard when I went to visit my friend while I was living in Jersey. Funny, as a kid who grew up in a Chinese carry-out, one of my duties was to tuck menus under people's wipers in parking lots (our family joint's in the suburbs of MD)

[Pan]

I never liked the placement of commercial flyers on cars, either, because people would at first think they had gotten tickets. But there's a difference between finding something annoying and assaulting someone over it! I'll bet that super has previously gotten into fights with people over other stuff, and I wonder what kinds of things the tenants in that building would have to say about him.

Edited January 19, 2005 by Pan (log)

[Dryden]

Doorman building with a call up, but with a twist - certain places that have proven they can't keep themselves from stuffing menus under the doors have been banned from bringing food up to the apartment. If you order from one of those places, you have to go down to the lobby to get it. And it does make us order less from those places, unless we really really want to eat what they've got.

[rooftop1000]

I cant even get a pizza delivered where I live

T

[NulloModo]

I love to get menus under the door, how else would I know who delivers and what to order from them? Then again, I live in Suburban DE, so I get maybe one or two menus a week at most... I imagine the avalanche of menus in NYC could be a different story...

[tommy]

they do make a mess. a bunch of litter sometimes, and a public service other times. i never came up with an happy medium.

furthing the mission.

[flinflon28]

I know that one of the perks many New Yorkers enjoyn is having a wide variety of the world's cuisine dropped at your door but I have always been of the school that if you aren't cooking for yourself that night you should pick up your own food. That can be if you call the establishment on your way home from work or just throwing on a coat and leaving the house. I've never been too comfortable with delivery men coming to my door and it saves you a tip as well. I don't mean this to sound like I'm cheap but I know people that order from establishments that are one block from their residence and that sounds preposterous.

[hshiau]

I know that one of the perks many New Yorkers enjoyn is having a wide variety of the world's cuisine dropped at your door but I have always been of the school that if you aren't cooking for yourself that night you should pick up your own food.  That can be if you call the establishment on your way home from work or just throwing on a coat and leaving the house.  I've never been too comfortable with delivery men coming to my door and it saves you a tip as well.  I don't mean this to sound like I'm cheap but I know people that order from establishments that are one block from their residence and that sounds preposterous.

←

Then I suppose you'd really be upset if I had my laundry and dry cleaning picked up and dropped off with my doorman, my groceries delivered by Fresh Direct, and my drug store purchases delivered as well. I wouldn't ever have to get out of my pajamas!!!

Ok. I don't do this but it is available.

[bloviatrix]

I know that one of the perks many New Yorkers enjoyn is having a wide variety of the world's cuisine dropped at your door but I have always been of the school that if you aren't cooking for yourself that night you should pick up your own food.  That can be if you call the establishment on your way home from work or just throwing on a coat and leaving the house.  I've never been too comfortable with delivery men coming to my door and it saves you a tip as well.  I don't mean this to sound like I'm cheap but I know people that order from establishments that are one block from their residence and that sounds preposterous.

←

Then I suppose you'd really be upset if I had my laundry and dry cleaning picked up and dropped off with my doorman, my groceries delivered by Fresh Direct, and my drug store purchases delivered as well. I wouldn't ever have to get out of my pajamas!!!

Ok. I don't do this but it is available.

←

One of the joys of Manhattan living is that when it gets miserably cold, assuming you work from home, there's absolutely no need to leave the apartment. Everything -- food, groceries, etc is delivered right to your door. I'll gladly tip the delivery guy if it means I don't have to go out in 15F weather.

[flinflon28]

One of the joys of Manhattan living is that when it gets miserably cold, assuming you work from home, there's absolutely no need to leave the apartment. Everything -- food, groceries, etc is delivered right to your door. I'll gladly tip the delivery guy if it means I don't have to go out in 15F weather.

←

[SobaAddict70]

It might build character, but not when it's bone-chillingly cold with a wind chill of 27 below as was the case a few nights ago.

Being a spineless jellyfish suits me just fine.

Soba

[Andrew Fenton]

One of the joys of Manhattan living is that when it gets miserably cold, assuming you work from home, there's absolutely no need to leave the apartment.  Everything -- food, groceries, etc is delivered right to your door.

Fuel, even: you can burn delivery menus for warmth...

[Pan]

Fuel, even: you can burn delivery menus for warmth...

←

That reminds me of a couple in Colorado who got on all the junk-mail lists they could and fueled their fireplace all winter with the resulting catalogs and such. But most of us New Yorkers have no fireplaces.