NEW YORK, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- Four on-duty New York sanitation supervisors allegedly shirked their snow-blowing duties to buy liquor and spend the night drinking, witnesses say.
The city Department of Investigation is probing the alleged Monday night incident in which witnesses say the four snow-blowing city employees bought two six-packs of beer from a Brooklyn convenience store and walked 5 blocks to their official department car passing a bus that was stuck and unmanned snow plows, the New York Post reported.
Customers who allegedly saw the workers buying the beer at the Ocean Mini Mart yelled at the workers, a witness said.
"They were saying, 'How can you do this? You should be outside!' "a witness told the Post Sunday.
The sanitation team was unfazed.
"One guy said, 'Don't worry about it. We know what we're doing,'" the witness said.
A witness reported the group was later hunkered down inside their official vehicle, the Post said.
In the morning, the workers appeared back at the convenience store, calling in to their bosses telling them they had run out of gas.
"This guy was on his cell and said, 'We're out of fuel,'" a witness said.
Department of Investigation Assistant Commissioner Keith Schwam said "we're looking into what happened."
The DOI is also checking into whether sanitation workers exacerbated the blizzard crisis with an organized slowdown, the Post said.
