In New York City the City Council approved legislation yesterday requiring large pharmacy chains to provide translation services in the city’s most popular languages.

The bill, which was approved by a vote of 36 to 7, would apply to pharmacies with more than four locations that are under the same ownership. Opponents of the bill say it is another example of the city overregulating private businesses.

According to a 2006 survey by the New York Academy of Medicine, 88 percent of randomly selected pharmacists served people who spoke only limited English every day, but 50 percent did not translate labels or did so less than once a week. About one in four New Yorkers do not speak English.

In a related announcement, Mexico City pharmacies will not be required to provide customers with product labels in any language other than Spanish.

Recently it was announced by The Californian.com that the City of Salinas has launched a new Spanish language website. According to the report:

“The city of Salinas has created a Web site that allows residents to view community information as well as submit online crime reports, maintenance requests and other forms in Spanish.

The site, http://espanol.ci.salinas.ca.us, went live Thursday.

The city paid its vendor about $19,000 to translate its English site at www.ci.salinas.ca.us, said Tom Kever, the city’s finance director. The vendor company will get an additional $1,700 per month to translate updated pages.”

For the record, we’d have done the job for $18,950.

According to an Associated Press published story from the past week, New York City is getting sued over translation services for welfare clients.

A group called Legal Services NYC filed the lawsuit in state Supreme Court in Manhattan on behalf of six clients. The suit alleges that language barriers caused lost or delayed benefits, among other things. The plaintiffs in the case speak Spanish, Mandarin or Cantonese Chinese, and Soninke, a West African language.

In defense of the city’s position, Commissioner Robert Doar says the Human Resources Administration provides 7,000 to 8,000 contracted interpretation services each year. It also uses hundreds of bilingual staff and community resources.

Doar says the agency has translated 800 forms, brochures and notices into required languages. The plaintiffs in this case it seems are not swayed.