A Long Island vendor is suing the city for canceling an April contract to buy nearly $8 million worth of protective gowns during the pandemic.
The about-face a month later on the deal cost Dart Seasonal Products millions of dollars, owner Barry Wachsler told The Post. He’s now suing for at least $10 million for breach of contract.
The vendor said the city initially was so desperate for any PPE that he, using his connections, sold them two and a half million masks. They also seemed eager to buy the isolation gowns but then reneged, Wachsler said. “I offered anything and everything to make it happen,” he said.
On April 9 the city agreed to buy 1 million gowns from Dart for $7,880,000, says the suit filed Oct. 12 in Manhattan Supreme Court, noting the quantity and pricing were set by the city. Wachsler is usually in the business of selling snow and ice removal products, not personal protection equipment.
On May 5, the city rejected the first shipment of gowns, but a week later the “city’s designated inspector approved at least two” of alternative samples offered, the suit says.
“Dart Seasonal Products delivered substandard medical gowns that were not what the city ordered. Dart was given a second chance to rectify the situation, but samples it shipped to the city again failed a quality assurance review,” said a spokesman for the city Department of Citywide Administrative Services, one of the named defendants in the suit.
