Android: Getting HTTP 403 Forbidden upon calling http://ift.tt/1jq34OV

I have been trying to use the Google api, more specifically this URL to get the U.S State and city and I keep on getting a 403 Forbidden HTTP error message, My code goes as follows:

private static boolean getAddressResult(String input, StringBuilder jsonResults) {
    HttpURLConnection conn = null;
    try {

        String mapUrl;
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(http://ift.tt/1jq34OV);
        sb.append("?sensor=false&address=" + URLEncoder.encode(input, "utf8"));

        mapUrl = sb.toString();

        URL url = new URL(mapUrl);

        Logger.d(TAG, ""+ url);
        Logger.d(TAG, "trying to read");

        conn = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();


        int status = conn.getResponseCode();

        Logger.d(TAG, "status: "+ status);
        InputStreamReader in = new InputStreamReader(conn.getInputStream());

        // Load the results into a StringBuilder
        int read;
        char[] buff = new char[1024];
        long currentTime = System.currentTimeMillis();

        while ((read = in.read(buff)) != -1) {
            Logger.d("NetworkUtil", "trying to parse");

            long elapsedTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
            if(elapsedTime-currentTime>=5000)
                return false;
            jsonResults.append(buff, 0, read);
        }
    } catch (MalformedURLException e) {
        Logger.e(LOG_TAG, "Error processing Places API URL", e);
        return true;
    } catch (IOException e) {
        Logger.e(LOG_TAG, "Error connecting to Places API", e);
        return true;
    } finally {
        if (conn != null) {
            conn.disconnect();
        }
    }
    return false;
}

I have tried different alternatives including changing the URL from HTTP to HTTPS, I am not sure of exactly what I am missing at this point, there have been few instances where this web service call came back with a 200 success but most of the time it just fails with a 403 HTTP ERROR code, any advice would be helpful at this point, I am also attaching a Log from Logcat:

 Error connecting to Places API
java.io.FileNotFoundException: http://ift.tt/1Cb9Wwy
        at libcore.net.http.HttpURLConnectionImpl.getInputStream(HttpURLConnectionImpl.java:186)
        at libcore.net.http.HttpsURLConnectionImpl.getInputStream(HttpsURLConnectionImpl.java:271)
        at .getAddressResult(NetworkUtil.java:217)
        at .access$000(NetworkUtil.java:30)
        at $ResolveCityTask.doInBackground(NetworkUtil.java:81)
        at $ResolveCityTask.doInBackground(NetworkUtil.java:42)