Penal Law § 120.19 · Article 120. Assault and Related Offenses
Assault on a retail worker
Text — Law content up to date as of October 23, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)
§ 120.19 Assault on a retail worker.
1. A person is guilty of assault on a retail worker when, with the intent to prevent a retail worker from performing an act within the scope of such worker's employment, such person causes physical injury to such retail worker and the person knew or reasonably should have known that such individual was a retail worker.
2. For the purposes of this section:
a. "Retail worker" shall mean any person whose usual place of work is a retail establishment. This shall include, but is not limited to, an employee of the retail establishment, an owner of the retail establishment, or a person who works in the retail establishment under arrangements made between the person and the establishment.
b. "Retail establishment" shall mean any physical business or commercial entity engaged in the sale of goods, merchandise, or services directly to consumers.
Assault on a retail worker is a class E felony.
Source of truth
- Edition
- Law content up to date as of October 23, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)
- Official file
- https://legislation.nysenate.gov/pdf/laws/PEN120.19
- Text hash
- sha256 c56765b3aca3db0072cb54310625f7b22603309401c3ad4683a7a07450a95bf1
- Composed by
- gen_ny_statutes.py 2026-11-10: the Senate's Open Legislation law tree (GET /api/3/laws/<ID>?full=true) read in document order; the Senate's PDF of the whole law (GET /pdf/laws/<ID>?full=true), read with PDFium, prints the same words in the same order
Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.