5. NO MORE FANCY DRINKS
If you’re in a busy Manhattan bar and you think it would be cute to order a Manhattan, you are sorely mistaken. The only time you can order any kind of elaborate drink is in an empty bar on a sunny afternoon when your bartender is bored out of their mind. Outside of that, order a bottle of Bud or something on the rocks and move aside so the rest of us can poison ourselves in peace. For moderately busy bars I am willing to institute a two-line system where normal drinkers can be served by a normal bartender and all these assholes craving an Absolut-Citron-with-a-twist-of-Mojito-Cinnamon-Swirl have their own line and their own bartender. A three-dollar tip will be mandatory for this poor bastard.

6. NO MORE RATS
Can you believe we still have rats everywhere? What is this, 1340? Starting yesterday, all outside trash in all five boroughs has to be encased in seamless steel with a gigantic lid only a human can lift. The undulating plastic bags currently sitting on the street now are not cutting it.

7. MEN CANNOT DISPLAY THEIR FEET IN PUBLIC
New York city is littered with a lot more than dog shit and rats. It’s also covered in syringes. Why are you dipping your toes in that? And why are you forcing me to watch you dip your filthy toes in that? Women are notoriously neat, so we can allow them to wear their strappy sandals and peep-toe shoes, but there is no way on Earth we’ll permit flip-flops in my better, newer New York. The fact that men will not only shamelessly brandish their toes but will actually remove the flop and hang onto the edge of a low bar table with their toes like a monkey (I have seen this) shows the pendulum has swung so far to the casual side, it’s broken off and gone flying into the East River.

8. NO TIPPING IF THE CAB REEKS
Do cabdrivers have nostrils? Don’t they know that their body odor has frightened all the clean air out of the car? I know how it happens. They do a 12-hour shift and chug coffee to stay awake. Caffeine makes them generate a noxious cloud of Old World Sweat. Got it. The part I don’t get is why you can’t prevent the customer from being an intimate part of this process. Effective immediately, if a driver can’t spend $1.99 on some anti-perspirant, we are no longer tipping $1 to inhale his armpits.

9. BAN MOTORBIKES WITHOUT MUFFLERS
I’m not sure what joy you get waking up hundreds of people by setting off car alarms, but such joys must cease. When you hear these deafening assholes, know that the bike didn’t come like that. This prick has gone to a shop and had a mechanic remove decades of engineering to go back to a time when cavemen liked to wake up our kids. As mayor, I’d force anyone caught doing this to ride a girl’s tricycle for three months.

10. THE FIRE DEPARTMENT HAS TO BUY A MINIVAN
Ask a New Yorker how many fires he’s seen in the past ten years and he’ll usually say two. Ask him how many sirens he’s heard and it’s going to be at least one a day. This incongruity is due to an annoying rule called “First Response.” This means any emergency whatsoever has to be answered by whoever is qualified to answer it. The FDNY loves this rule because they get to pile twenty guys into two gigantic trucks and sound multiple alarms that say, “We’re here! We matter! We’re here! We matter!” for even the tiniest fuss. Buy yourselves a minivan and stick a ladder on the top. If someone is choking on a chicken bone or a cat is stuck in a tree, one or two guys can quietly speed over and take care of it. We don’t need to go deaf or broke justifying your circus sideshow.

If New York is going to remain heavily taxed, we want our money to go to something that improves our quality of life. We want a city that isn’t a relentless assault on our eyes and ears. Is that too much to ask?