In questioning an application by the owner of Shop Delight to open a butcher and fish store three doors down, Village of Great Neck Plaza trustees charged on Jan. 6 that the supermarket had repeatedly violated a conditional-use permit that restricts deliveries to 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Wednesday and complained that trucks parked and offloaded on the street rather than in offloading zones.
“You’ve been in gross violation of your conditional-use permit as of now. I’ve driven by and seen trucks there when they shouldn’t be there and parked in the center aisle or places where they shouldn’t be,” Trustee Gerry Schneiderman said.
But court records show the supermarket was only ticketed seven times in the last eight years.
Village of Great Neck Plaza Mayor Jean Celender said she was unsure of how many times Shop Delight has been ticketed, but defended the village’s response to concerns about Shop Delight’s operation.
“Shop Delight does have ongoing problems with issues such as deliveries, the hours when these are made, and where trucks park to make a delivery, which at times are in violation of conditions in their conditional-use permit. When we see this happening, the offender is issued a summons,” Celender said.
With “only” four enforcement officers, she said the village was limited in how closely the glatt kosher supermarket could be monitored.
Shop Delight owner Edward Yakupov said at the Jan. 6 hearing that he was seeking to move a butcher and fish shop that he is operating out of the basement of his store at Welwyn Road to a storefront three doors down to make his customers “more comfortable.”
Yakupov said that Shop Delight customers currently must place their orders to the meat and fish department in the basement through an intercom system. Employees then prepare the order and bring it up to the customer, he said.
He said he tells delivery companies when to arrive but since Shop Delight receives deliveries from other states, it is more difficult for them to arrive during a set period of time.
Schneiderman said he wanted to see Shop Delight adhere to its current conditional-use permit before the board decides whether to approve the butcher shop expansion.
The Village of Great Neck Estates trustees rejected an application to put a second Shop Delight in Great Neck at their July 13, 2015 meeting after Yakupov failed to file an amended application after several months of contentious public hearings.
Great Neck Estates trustees had expressed a wide range of concerns with the supermarket proposal at the former location of a Rite Aid — about a half mile from the Welwyn Road location —including increased traffic, trucks making deliveries, odors from cooking problems related to the Great Neck Plaza supermarket. They also cited parking issues at the existing Welwyn Road location.
Court records show Shop Delight received its first violation from Great Neck Plaza on Sept. 7, 2010 at 5:55 a.m. for failure to adhere to its conditional-use permit, a $200 fine.
Over the next five years, Shop Delight had accumulated six more violations against the location’s permitted uses, each of which carried a fine of $350 and were subsequently paid.
The village is currently seeking to increase fines for businesses violation their conditional-use permit to $350 for a first offense, between $350 and $700 for a second offense and up to $1,000 for third offense and all subsequent offenses.
The board is awaiting approval by the Nassau County Planning Commission before voting on the amended law.
Great Neck Chamber of Commerce President Scott Zimmerman said he had mixed feelings about Shop Delight.
“It’s tricky with this. I see both sides. I am a resident and I am a business owner,” Zimmerman said. “Yes, we are at the mercy of the deliveries but at the same time, that is a highly residential area that does disrupt the commute.”
Zimmerman said he thought the Plaza was correct in asking Yakupov to prove he can stick to the conditions in his permit.
“I think it’s fair for the Plaza to ask them to try to clean up their issues and reconsider the filing of the permit,” he said. “From what I understand, he is supposed to have extra staff to monitor traffic and he does not comply.”
“I definitely endorse Shop Delight’s expansion,” Zimmerman added. ”But like I said, I’m in agreement with the Plaza.”
In addition to food delivery, Deputy Mayor Ted Rosen voiced concerns about safety issues stemming from customers choosing to not use an existing crosswalk to get to the supermarket from the parking lot.
“My concern is that with this store, where it is, that’s only going to increase that we’re going to have more customers going from this store, exiting across the street to the parking lot and basically ignoring the crosswalk that was put in as an important part of your arrangement with the park district,” he said. “That’s a real safety concern.”
On Feb. 3, the village is holding a public hearing about a Transportation Enhancement Project, in which they received $838,000 in state funding to improve pedestrian and bicyclist safety on Shoreward Drive and Welwyn Road.
The board had voted to adjourn permit talks until the Feb. 3 meeting.
