ALEXANDRIA, Va. — January 24, 2017 — Following months of discussions and coordination among TRSA and the New York City government to mitigate the regulatory impact, a new law goes into effect January 31, 2017 that licenses and sets standards for commercial and on-premise laundries serving hotels, hospitals, restaurants and other businesses within the city.
Since press reports spurred this bill, TRSA worked to inform city officials about actual practices, to prevent unnecessary burdens on commercial laundries operating within and serving customers in New York City. For example, rather than have the Commissioner of the Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) establish standards of cleanliness for linens, uniforms and other textiles, those standards will be based TRSA’s industry-leading Hygienically Clean certification.
Following earlier teleconferences and webinars, TRSA organized a meeting on January 11 of laundry operators and city officials at the Department of Consumer Affairs offices to discuss implementation.
Several key issues were discussed:
- There are two licenses, one for laundries operating within New York City and a second for laundries delivering within the city including those operating in the surrounding states.
- These licensing requirements apply to both commercial and on-premise laundries including on-premise laundries in hotels, gyms and other businesses.
- All laundries are required to tag delivery trucks and thousands of laundry carts with a company’s license number. Laundries operating within the city are open to DCA inspection while only the vehicles delivering from laundries processing outside the city may be inspected.
- The application process requires that all laundries certify legal compliance with safety and wage requirements for the jurisdiction in which they operate.
“Hotel laundries are liable under the new law, whether they realize it or not,” said TRSA President and CEO Joseph Ricci. “In terms of hotels, roughly 70-75 percent of the hotels actually have laundries that would require licensing.”
TRSA expects the new licensing and regulations to impact more than 50 commercial laundries serving New York City and hundreds of smaller, on-premise laundries operated by hotels, gyms and other businesses. TRSA is available to assist laundries that serve city businesses with any questions about compliance.
TRSA represents an $18-billion industry employing nearly 200,000 people at more than 1,500 facilities nationwide. The industry reaches every major business and industrial region and municipality in the country.
Most Americans benefit at least once a week from the cleanliness and safety provided by the industry—through its laundering and delivery of reusable linens, uniforms, towels, floor mats and other products for the healthcare, hospitality and industrial/manufacturing sectors. TRSA member companies’ services minimize environmental impacts on air, water and solid waste disposal while reducing costs for millions of customers.
TRSA’s industry-leading Hygienically Clean certifications recognize textile services companies’ commitment to cleanliness through laundry plant inspection and third party, quantified biological testing. The certification process verifies plant processes used in these facilities meet appropriate hygienically clean standards and best management practices (BMPs) across all laundry customer market segments.
Posted January 25, 2017
Source: TRSA
