A double-decker tour bus company has been waging all out war against a rival in Times Square — beating up its workers and harassing its customers with weed smoke and megaphones, a new lawsuit claims.
Top View, a hop-on hop-off sightseeing firm, has allegedly been trying to edge out the competition with a “calculated” campaign of harassment, intimidation and even violent beatdowns of rival drivers, according to the Manhattan Supreme Court suit.
“They tried everything they could to make us not to make money,” said plaintiff Lister Oluwabamise Jegede, owner of Aurora Tourism Services, known as New York Iconic Cruises bus tours.
“They’ve attacked our agents physically — including myself, including my son,” Jegede, 42, told The Post in a recent interview.
“They send people to disrupt our operation,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what time or where.”
Groups of up to six workers from Top View have repeatedly blocked the entrance of Aurora’s buses while tourists were trying to board and even stood in front of the vehicles to prevent them from picking up passengers, the lawsuit, filed Monday, contends.
The crew of disruptors — who call themselves the “suicide squad,” according to Jegede — have also blown smoke from giant blunts in the faces of tourists and used megaphones to harass potential customers while they purchased tickets, the suit claims.
The band of bullies have broken phones belonging to Aurora workers, Jegede said — and even harassed a Post photographer on Tuesday morning, getting in his face and throwing hands toward his camera while yelling at him to “Say something.”
The Times Square turf battle began shortly after Jegede’s company started operating four double-decker buses as hop-on, hop-off tours there in the fall of 2022, he said.
Two other companies also offer similar services and they all share the same bus stops at the Crossroads of the World — but only one has allegedly tried to strong-arm them out of business: Go New York Tours, known as Top View, per the suit.
“A young man appeared and he said he was sorry, but his job now was to demolish our business and to ensure that we didn’t survive,” Jegede recalled of how he was welcomed to the neighborhood.
Eventually, one man turned into a full-time team whose sole function “is to exterminate our business by creating [an] obnoxious environment for the operation of our business,” he claimed.
The ruffians would hold signs in front of customers trying to pay for tickets, shout at them not to ride not ride Aurora’s buses using megaphones and scream threats at Jegede’s workers, according to him and the suit.
While the “deliberate and malicious campaign” began with interference, the lawsuit reads, it “escalated over time” and eventually led “to acts of physical aggression and violence.”
In April 2023, Top View workers — wearing their distinctive red uniforms — allegedly began positioning themselves in front of Jegede’s buses, preventing them from picking up customers waiting to board.
Other times, the agitators would smoke huge cannabis blunts next to boarding customers, the suit claims.
In January, several men even tried to solicit tourists who were already on board Aurora buses, promising them free rides on Top View buses if they disembarked, according to the lawsuit.
In the past year, Jegede says things spilled over to physical violence.
One attack in January sent one of Jegede’s workers to the hospital. The Top View worker was arrested and charged with assault, battery, harassment and aggravated assault, the lawsuit states.
In April, a Top View worker allegedly pushed, punched and kicked an Aurora employee — Jegede’s 22-year-old son — in broad daylight, just steps from customers, according to the lawsuit and a criminal complaint from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
In a video shared with The Post, the Top View worker is seen shoving Jegede’s son, dressed in blue, first in the chest, and then at his throat — before taking a strong, swinging kick toward him as frightened tourists, including children, stand inches away.
The Top View staffer was arrested and charged with multiple counts of assault and harassment, according to criminal court filings.
Jegede said his son refused to return to work in Times Square after the incident, as have many of his other employees.
The “relentless harassment” is making it impossible to retain drivers and other workers, he said.
“We train them, they do all the requirements — drug test and everything — and they quit the next day,” Jegede said. “When they see what is happening to us, they don’t come back. They just say no.”
“Businesses must operate within the bounds of the law, and we are committed to ensuring that tour operators that follow the rules can conduct their business without unlawful interference,” said Aurora’s lawyer, Brandon Walters. “Our client refuses to be bullied out of business by aggressive and illegal means.”
A request for comment to Top View and a message left to an attorney who recently represented the bus company went unanswered.
Read the full article here
