Owners and staff of a Queens garbage carrying firm that subsequently obtained a number of highly sought-after permits from the sanitation department are among the donors under investigation by New York City’s campaign watchdog for their contributions to Mayor Eric Adams’ 2021 campaign.
Five Royal Waste Services workers contributed a total of $10,800 to then-candidate Adams on June 7, 2021, only two weeks before Adams won the Democratic primary, according to campaign filings. Records show that one of the staff members gave $4,000—$2,000 more than the city’s permissible limit—and the campaign reimbursed them for half of their donation.
Royal Waste Services was one of eighteen garbage carriers granted permission earlier this year to collect waste from companies. The contributions from the firm were noted in a draft audit of Adams’ 2021 election fund by the Campaign Finance Board, which Gothamist was able to get last month via a public records request.
The Campaign Finance Board has urged that Adams’ team explain how the money was solicited, raising the possibility that the company bundled the donations in order to donate more money to Adams’ campaign than is permitted by law, even though the audit finds no connection between the contributions and Royal Waste receiving the licenses from the sanitation department.
The audit also raises concerns about the manner in which Adams’ campaign requested donations from staff members of two other businesses, KSK Construction and New World Mall, all of which are purportedly under investigation as part of a federal investigation.
According to the audit, Adams’ campaign failed to submit the necessary documentation indicating if Royal Waste Services acted as a “intermediary,” or bundler, in order to solicit the donations.
The 901-page study on Adams’ fund exposes careless record keeping, with hundreds of “potential intermediaries” that the campaign failed to disclose and improperly documented spending totaling $2.3 million.
Public documents reveal that between 2021 and 2023, Royal garbage paid Pitta Bishop & Del Giorno $276,750 to influence Adams, the City Council, and the sanitation department on issues pertaining to commercial garbage reform. The Daily News revealed last year that Vito Pitta, a partner at that company, was lobbying on behalf of Royal Waste and other businesses while working for Adams’ campaign.
So far Adams has not been charged with any crimes, and neither has Royal Waste Services or any of its workers.
A law requiring the establishment of 20 “commercial waste zones” throughout the five boroughs was enacted in 2019 by the City Council and former Mayor Bill de Blasio. As a result, private companies will have to use one of the three garbage haulers allowed by the city to collect their waste in each one.
The firms chosen for each of those zones were revealed by the sanitation department in January of last year. Royal Waste Services was granted the authority to collect rubbish from businesses in five of those zones.
