Title GCT, General City

§ 1. Short title. This chapter shall be known as the "General City Law."

§ 10. Licenses to adult blind persons. The mayor of any city shall have the power to issue a license to any adult blind person for the vending of goods, or newspapers in such places as he or she may set aside for this purpose. The license shall be issued for a term of one year a…

§ 11. Use of soft coal in public institutions. No public institution maintained by the state within the corporate limits of any city of the second class, shall use or burn bituminous coal in the operation of any of its departments, provided that the local ordinances of any such …

§ 116. Certificates of deposit. The legislative body of a city may authorize and empower its chief fiscal officer, in his discretion, to issue certificates of deposit, each in the sum of ten dollars, or any multiple thereof, and at such a rate of interest, if any, as he shall pr…

§ 12. Money for celebration of legal holidays in cities. The common council of any city is hereby authorized to appropriate and set aside each year such sums it may deem proper for the purpose of providing for the due and proper observance of any legal holiday in such city.

§ 12-a. Money for tercentennial celebrations. The common council of any city is hereby authorized to appropriate and set aside such sums as it may deem proper in order to celebrate the due and proper observance of tercentennial celebrations commemorating the founding of the comm…

§ 120. Creation; board; employees. The governing body of each city having a population of fifty thousand or more is hereby authorized to create a city drug control authority. Such authority shall consist of not less than five nor more than nine members who shall be appointed by …

§ 121. Powers of the authority. The authority, by and through its board, shall have the following functions, powers and duties: 1. To coordinate and assist in activities in the city relating to drug control; 2. To establish in-patient and out-patient treatment facilities for per…

§ 122. Reports of the authority. The authority shall make an annual report to the governing body of the city. When it deems advisable, the authority may make interim reports to the governing body of the city with its recommendations, in order to afford the governing body of the …

§ 123. Acquisition of real property; financing of expenditures. Real property required for any of the purposes set forth in this article shall be acquired by the governing body of the city on behalf of the authority. Nothing contained in this article shall be construed to preven…

§ 13. Moneys for Memorial and Veterans days; how expended. The moneys appropriated by a city for observance of Memorial and Veterans days therein pursuant to section twelve of this chapter shall be expended under the direction of a board composed of the mayor and the commanders …

§ 13-a. Moneys for maintaining the conference of mayors and other city officials of the state of New York and any of its activities. The common council of any city is hereby authorized to appropriate and expend annually, from moneys raised by taxation in such city, a sum to meet…

§ 13-b. Publicity fund. Any city may establish a publicity fund of such amount as the city council or other governing body may by resolution direct, to be expended for the purpose of advertising the advantages of such city as a winter and summer resort, or for the commemoration …

§ 13-c. Power of cities to provide moneys to replace revenues from excise taxes. The common council or other governing body of any city, in which the trafficking in liquor is prohibited wholly or partly may raise, as long as the trafficking in liquor is prohibited, an amount not…

§ 13-e. Expenses of meeting rooms for veterans' and other organizations. Any city may appropriate and make available a sum of money not exceeding five hundred dollars in any one year for each chapter, post, camp or garrison, as the case may be, of the Grand Army of the Republic,…

§ 13-f. Moneys for maintaining the municipal electric utilities association of the state of New York and any of its activities. The common council of any city or the board in control of any electric utility owned and operated by the city is hereby authorized to appropriate and e…

§ 13-g. Moneys for maintaining the New York State Assessors Association and any of its activities. The common council of any city is hereby authorized to appropriate and expend annually a sum to meet its proportionate share of the actual and necessary expenses of maintaining and…

§ 13-h. Moneys for maintaining statewide associations of local officials and any of their activities. The common council of any city is hereby authorized to appropriate and expend annually a sum to meet its proportionate share of the actual and necessary expenses of maintaining …

§ 130. Contracts with corporations for supply of gas. The municipal officers authorized by law to contract in behalf of any city of the first class, for the lighting of its streets may, from time to time, in the manner, upon the terms and with the conditions hereinafter provided…

§ 131. Letting of contract to be public. Every such contract shall be let at public letting as required by law, and as a consideration for the execution and performance thereof, shall expressly provide for and secure to such city, prices lower than any now prescribed therein by …

§ 132. Contract to provide for reduction of price. Every such contract shall also provide and require that during the term therein specified the corporation party thereto may and shall supply gas to the inhabitants of such city at prices lower than those now or then charged ther…

§ 14. Permits for erection of booths and arches. The mayor of any city of the first class or the commissioner of transportation in the city of New York, may, in his discretion, grant temporary permits for the erection of booths, stands, arches, overhead passageways, or flagstaff…

§ 140. Establishment of hospitals. A city of the first class shall have power whenever its board of health shall deem it necessary for the promotion of the health of its inhabitants, to establish, equip and maintain, outside of its corporate limits, and not within the limits of …

§ 141. Selection of site. Whenever a city having a population of more than three hundred thousand inhabitants shall desire to exercise the power conferred by this article it shall through its board of health, select such locality outside of its corporate limits, but within the s…

§ 142. Jurisdiction of local board of health. All hospitals or institutions now or hereafter established or maintained by any city of the first class for the regular or special treatment of persons suffering from the disease known as pulmonary tuberculosis shall be subject to th…

§ 15. Firefighters moving from one city to another. The firefighters of the different cities of this state, in case of removal from one city to another, shall be allowed the time which they have served as such firefighters in the city they left, in the city to which they have re…

§ 16. Term of service; how reckoned. When any such firefighter shall\nhave served as such for so long a time thereafter as shall make the\nwhole term of service the same as required by law of firefighters\nresiding in the city removed to, he shall be entitled to all the\nprivile…

§ 16-a. Volunteer members of fire companies. 1. Except as otherwise provided in a city charter or other special or local law, volunteer members of a fire company shall be elected and appointed as provided in this section. 2. The board of fire commissioners or other body or offic…

§ 16-b. Computation of pensions in certain retirement funds. Notwithstanding the provisions of any other law, general or special, the members of every teachers' retirement system in all cities of the state shall, when retired pursuant to the law governing such system, receive a …

§ 16-c. Minimum service retirement benefits for certain sanitation department employees in cities and who are members of pension or retirement systems maintained by such cities. 1. For the purposes of this section the uniformed force of a city department of sanitation or similar…

§ 161. Bills of lading; penalty for altering. A person guilty of altering with intent to defraud, any original bill of lading issued by the person, firm or corporation by whom the coal was loaded into the vessel in which such coal is transported to any city of the first or secon…

§ 17. Operation of crematories for disposal of garbage. A crematory in any city or within ten miles of the corporate limits of any city, owned or controlled by any person or corporation or by a city, for the treatment or consuming of garbage or other refuse matter or offal, dead…

§ 170. Laws repealed. Of the laws enumerated in the schedule hereto annexed, that portion specified in the last column is hereby repealed.

§ 171. When to take effect. This chapter shall take effect immediately.

§ 18. License to operate moving picture apparatus. It shall not be lawful for any person or persons, save as excepted in section eighteen-a of this article, to operate any moving picture apparatus and its connections in a city of the first class unless such person or persons so …

§ 18-a. Nothing contained in section eighteen shall be considered to apply to any so-called miniature motion picture apparatus which uses only an enclosed incandescent electric lamp and approved acetate of cellulose or slow-burning films, and is of such construction that films o…

§ 18-b. Admission of children to theatres. The local legislative body of any city by a majority vote may provide by local law, subject to the provisions of this section, for the licensing of theatres in such city wherein there shall be exhibited those films which have been licen…

§ 18-c. The common council in all cities of the third class shall have the power, upon application, in writing, of the property owners, owning at least two-thirds of the number of feet fronting or abutting upon the street and along the line of any proposed improvement for the co…

§ 18-d. Duty of street vendors to keep the sidewalk and street clean. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any city which has a local law or ordinance in relation to responsibility for maintenance of sidewalk and street cleanliness shall apply such law or ordinance or pro…

§ 19. General grant of powers. 1. Every city is granted power to regulate, manage and control its property and local affairs and is granted all the rights, privileges and jurisdiction necessary and proper for carrying such power into execution. No enumeration of powers in this o…

§ 2. Term of office of city supervisors. 1. The term of office of each supervisor hereafter elected in a city shall, notwithstanding the provisions of such city charter, be two years, and a supervisor shall only be elected in such city each second year thereafter, except to fill…

§ 2-a. Succession to certain city offices. 1. In every city in which the mayor and president or presiding officer of the local legislative body are elected at the same time and for the same term by the electors of the entire city, in case of the removal from office of the mayor,…

§ 2-b. Definition. The term "infant" or "minor", as used in this chapter, shall mean a person who has not attained the age of eighteen years.

§ 20. Grant of specific powers. Subject to the constitution and general laws of this state, every city is empowered: 1. To contract and be contracted with and to institute, maintain and defend any action or proceeding in any court. 2. To take, purchase, hold and lease real and p…

§ 20-a. Purchasing department or agency. Each city, except a city of the first class having a population of one million or more inhabitants, is hereby authorized and empowered to create and establish by ordinance of the common council or similar legislative body and to maintain …

§ 20-b. Cities authorized to impose taxes on utilities. Notwithstanding any other provisions of law to the contrary, any city of this state, acting through its local legislative body, is hereby authorized and empowered to adopt and amend local laws imposing in any such city a ta…

§ 20-c. Temporary investment of certain city funds in obligations of the United States. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, each city of the state, acting through its board of estimate or other analogous governing body, may authorize its comptroller or other chief fiscal…

§ 20-d. Alternative procedure for acquisition of certain real property, personal property and franchises of omnibus lines within cities having a population of one million or more inhabitants. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, general, special or local, cities with a po…

§ 20-e. State office buildings and other public improvements in certain cities. 1. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, general, special or local, every city is hereby authorized and empowered: (a) To acquire by purchase, gift or dedication, or by acquisition in the manne…

§ 20-f. Transfer of development rights; definitions; conditions; procedures. 1. As used in this section: a. "Development rights" shall mean the rights permitted to a lot, parcel, or area of land under a zoning ordinance or local law respecting permissible use, area, density, bul…