Village of Great Neck Plaza trustees on Wednesday again expressed skepticism about an application from the owner of the Shop Delight supermarket to operate a butcher shop three stores down on Welwyn Road, citing unresolved issues with the supermarket.
Deputy Mayor Ted Rosen said he saw a delivery truck double-parked in the safety aisle earlier that day, despite the assurances of Shop Delight owner Edward Yakupov that the delivery trucks would not violate the law.
“What about the truck that was there 3:13 this afternoon?” Rosen asked attorney Paul Bloom, who represents Yakupov. “A box truck, and I know it’s unfair to ask you because I know you weren’t there, was double-parked in the safety aisle. Did he control that delivery?”
Bloom presented the board with letters from meat delivery companies stating they would only deliver during the allowed time period.
As he has at previous meetings, Bloom also said that the board should separate their concerns with Shop Delight from the proposed butcher shop.
“This is a separate application for a separate operation,” Bloom said. “If in fact there are violations being performed by truckers or anybody else in respect to the supermarket, give them a summons.”
He said the village also should issue summonses if they saw the store violating village code.
At a Jan. 6 board meeting, trustees said they had seen delivery trucks dropping off items at Shop Delight during restricted hours.
The supermarket’s conditional-use permit allows for deliveries between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. Monday through Wednesday.
In response to a Great Neck News article releasing information that Shop Delight received seven violations in eight years, Mayor Jean Celender said court records did not paint the whole picture.
“That isn’t the whole picture because if people pay the ticket and it is issued to the truck driver, there’s no way in our system to show it was given out at 4 Welwyn and related to this business,” Celender said.
“When we get a complaint from a resident, we do send code over there and we’ve had code over there but we have to catch them to be able to issue a summons,” she added.
Trustee Pamela Marksheid asked Bloom if his client would be willing to pay a full-time employee or pay the village for an extra code enforcement officer to have someone dedicated to making sure there are no parking or delivery violations.
Marksheid added that it would be a “game-changer.”
Bloom said he would need to know more information and discuss the possibility of paying for an extra employee with his client.
“I don’t think that is an outlandish request but I would have to know what we’re talking about in terms of dollar and commitment,” he said. “But I don’t think if they were here standing next to me this evening that their answer would be absolutely ‘no.’”
Village Clerk-Treasurer Patricia O’Byrne said starting salary for a village code enforcement officer ranges from $25,000 to $30,000 per year.
Resident Jeffrey Choit, who said he lives on Schenk Avenue and his window looks out to the back of Shop Delight, said he had seen meat delivery trucks arriving between 4 and 5 in the morning, causing a disturbance to the neighborhood.
Choit also said he had tried speaking with Yakupov, code enforcement officers and village officials but “got nowhere.”
“It’s not fair to me and it’s not fair to any of the residents that live there,” he said. “The fact of the matter is you’re going to drive residents out of this town.”
At the Feb. 3 meeting, Rosen said he was concerned about safety issues stemming from customers choosing to not use an existing crosswalk to get to the supermarket from the parking lot.
The Great Neck Park District has a five-year agreement with Shop Delight that allows shoppers to use the district’s Shoreward Drive parking lot near the Welwyn store during certain times under a program in which shoppers leave their keys with attendants from the Progressive Valet Parking Corp. of Woodhaven. The plan was intended to alleviate parking problems in the area.
Park district commissioners Robert Lincoln and Daniel Nachmanoff attended the board meeting and assured the board they would construct a fence that opened directly to the crosswalk leading to Shop Delight.
While he agreed that Shop Delight’s owner was not responsible for walking shoppers across the street, Rosen said the parking arrangement with the park district “encourages” shoppers to not cross at the crosswalk.
“It’s not the opening in the fence, it’s the fact that I see the customers of Shop Delight crossing the street now with shopping carts, ignoring the crosswalk, going at times to the far east entrance of the parking lot because there’s valet parking,” he said. “And if you increase the number of pedestrians that are exiting to the east, that will only increase a whole discussion about opening the fence of the parking lot.”
Commissioner of Public Services Michael Sweeney suggested Yakupov set up a system with the supermarket’s valet parking attendants so shoppers can get their cars back at the westerly end of the parking lot rather than needing to go east and crossing through the street.
Village attorney Richard Gabriele asked Bloom to return at the Feb. 17 meeting to address the trustees’ concerns regarding a comparison of ownership between the proposed butcher shop and Shop Delight, food delivery information including frequency of deliveries, identity of deliverer, what they deliver, delivery times and size of trucks and if Yakupov would fund a code enforcement officer either through the store or through the village.
At the meeting, resident Jeffrey Schwartz, who is Celender’s husband, called a recent Blank Slate Media editorial about the village’s stance on the butcher shop application a “disservice” to the community.
“It seemed to forget the history,” Schwartz said. “It seemed to forget the process this board goes through for every application trying to balance the needs of the community against the needs to promote business.”
“To get an editorial like that was a disgrace in my opinion,” he added.
The next board meeting is on Feb. 17.
