'They Just Sat in Their Car All Night With the Heat Running'

One of the first orders of business for New York's new Governor, Andrew Cuomo, should be to launch an investigation into the outrageous behavior of the New York City sanitation workers. Their actions have simply made it too easy to ignore. And the hits just keep coming.

Instead of plowing, they got plowed.

A group of on-duty Sanitation supervisors is under investigation for allegedly buying booze and chilling in their cozy department car for hours Monday night after the blizzard stranded a bus and three snowplows blocks away.

The city Department of Investigation is probing the incident after witnesses said four snow blowers blew off their duties to get blitzed, buying two six-packs of beer from a Brooklyn bodega. The workers then walked five blocks to their car, which was in 20 inches of snow in the middle of 18th at McDonald avenues near the F train entrance, passing the stuck bus and idle plows on 18th Avenue between Third and Fourth streets.

The four remained in the idling sedan until morning -- then told their bosses they could do nothing about the blizzard because they had run out of gas, one witness said.

"They just sat in their car all night with the heat running," the witness said.

Customers who saw the group buying beer at the Ocean Mini Mart at 3917 18th Ave. in Kensington shouted at the workers.

"They were saying, 'How can you do this? You should be outside!' " a witness told The Post.

But the Sanitation team was unmoved.

"One guy said, 'Don't worry about it. We know what we're doing,' " the witness recalled.

A block from the deli, six riders remained on the snow-stalled bus all night.

The supervisors had shown up at the deli near Ocean Parkway at 8 p.m. when a smiling, uniformed Sanitation honcho bought a six-pack of Heineken Light, the witnesses said. About 30 minutes later, another worker from the group bought a six-pack of Corona Light.

Later, they ducked inside their car and hunkered down.

"I saw them drinking, but I'm not sure what it was," said a witness who lives in the area.

In the morning, the four men returned to the deli, where they were heard telling their bosses over the phone that their car 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."

Meanwhile, it appears those were weren't getting drunk were calling in sick.

It was a real snow job.

Between 660 and 720 Sanitation workers called in sick for the cleanup of last week's blizzard -- more than double the usual rate, The Post has learned.

About 11 to 12 percent of the Sanitation Department's 6,000-strong force didn't show up for work on Monday or Tuesday, city officials confirmed, as 20 inches of snow brought the Apple to a near-standstill.