Mm-hmm

... for bodega cats.

So, um, I changed the petition and I said...

The, the petition went from like funding and like, uh, allocating resources to, to helping bodega cats.

Uh, I changed that to legalize bodega cats completely and after I changed that, it took off.

It probably got 10,000 signatures and then at that time, uh, Keith Powers, he was a city councilman at the time.

He's, he's been term limited out, um, but he reached out to me and I worked with his office about my petition.

Okay.

Yeah

... speaking.

You know? It...

But we, we, we got by with it.

It was, uh, it w- it was not too bad with Spanish speakers, but, uh, Arabic owners who, like, I had to explain the project and explain this paper release that you have to sign so that I could take photos on your property, you know, and get permission to, like, snap photos in your private, you know, business.

But anyway, so we stopped.

We saw Jimmy in the doorway.

Wow

How did you wind up being this guy?

You know, that's a great question, and I'm still struggling to answer it, but I will try my best.

So it dates back to 2020 when I first started the Bodega Cats of New York account.

So the idea there was I was just going to document bodega cats in my neighborhood.

I didn't realize how big of a demand and how big of a project this would end up being and how much of my life it would consume in the best way possible.

But 2020, I started posting photos of my local bodega cats.

It was a lot of like Luna and a lot of Oreo from my neighborhood in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, mostly off of like Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn.

So where is that petition in the machinations of politics or laws or how does that work?

Share with us a little bit more details about this legislation that you are supportive of.

of.Yeah.

So we started a petition in January 2025 and the initial petition that led to the legislation was actually not to legalize bodega cats, it was just to encourage the city to provide resources to cat rescues in New York.

I started the account, I was documenting bodega cats.

I was obviously involved with bodega cats and I caught a lot of slack from the rescue community here, and rightfully so.

I was naive when I first started this and I really assumed that all bodega cats are treated exceptionally and they're all not living in basements.

But, you know, a few cat rescues woke me up to the problem.

But then I guess who would be the bodega cat czar rather than the rat czar to ensure that the benefits really get down to those cats?