N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law § 209
Any keeper of a hotel, motel, apartment hotel, inn, boarding-house, rooming-house or lodging-house, except an immigrant lodging-house, whose lien for fare, lodging, accommodation or board upon any goods, baggage or other chattel property, shall not have been paid for a period of eighteen months, may sell such property at public auction for cash to the highest bidder upon mailing a notice inclosed in a securely closed postpaid wrapper, directed to the person who left such property with such keeper, at the post office of the ctiy, town or village where such hotel, motel, apartment hotel, inn, boarding-house, rooming-house or lodging-house is situated, such notice to contain a statement of the time and place when and where such goods, baggage or other chattel property will be sold and such notice shall be mailed at least fifteen days before such sale shall take place. Such keeper shall, out of the proceeds of such sale, retain the amount of his lien and the expense of selling such property, and, if there be any surplus, he shall, within ten days after such sale, upon demand, pay over such surplus to the person whose property was sold. In case such surplus shall not be demanded and paid as aforesaid, within said ten days, then within five days thereafter, such keeper shall pay such surplus to the treasurer of the county or chamberlain or other chief fiscal officer of the city in which such sale took place, and shall, at the same time, file with said treasurer, chamberlain or other chief fiscal officer a statement in writing containing the name of the person whose property was sold, the price at which it was sold, the date of such sale and by whom sold. Such surplus shall be kept and disposed of in the manner provided in section two hundred and eight of this chapter. Nothing contained in this article shall preclude any other remedy now existing for the enforcement and satisfaction of a lien of the keeper of a hotel, motel, apartment hotel, inn, boarding-house, rooming-house or lodging-house, except an immigrant lodging-house, nor bar his right to recover for so much of the debt as shall not be paid through such sale.
N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law § 209