Local dealers have transformed a Burger King near City Hall into an open-air drug market — and an outraged resident in the nabe is suing the restaurant’s franchise owner. 

Kevin Kaufman, a 20-year resident, has had enough, and rightly so: The crooks crowd the doorway and hustle passersby for change, openly use weed and drink in public and brawl violently. 

The chaos has generated some 143 calls to 911 since the start of 2023 — and only two arrests. 

So while we sympathize with Kaufman, his ire at Burger King franchise owner Lalmir Sultanzada is misplaced. 

It’s not Sultanzada’s fault the cops have their hands tied. 

Thank city and state progressives for that. 

From the ever more disastrous bail “reforms” of 2019 to the City Council’s obscene How Many Stops act — a Kafkaesque law meant to drown all cops in useless paperwork and stop them from doing their jobs — our lawmakers for years have been fighting tooth and nail to prevent any actual law enforcement from happening. 

And it’s working: Major crimes in the First Precinct, where the Burger King is,are up 2.4% so far this year over already sky-high 2023.

That includes a 14% jump in felony assaults and a 52% spike in burglaries.

Kaufman knows the score: “It’s this idiotic bail reform. They have arrested a couple of people, but they are back within 24 hours.”

Despite this, New York’s Finest are still the only ones who seem to give a damn. 

Says Kaufman, “We’ve reached out to every direction we can and the only ones that seem to be responsive and listening are the cops.”

This is happening blocks from where the hard leftists on the council have been voting against public safety. 

Sadly, there’s no way to sue New York lawmakers for creating countless zones of lawlessness.

Gotham’s descent into chaos will continue until the public turns against a political class that keeps putting the criminals’ interests first.