Councilman Supports Eviction of Coney Island Eight

John Del Signore/Gothamist

Eight mom-and-pop businesses were expected to appear in housing court today to fight their eviction from the Coney Island Boardwalk, but we're told the court date was postponed for a second time, to February 16th. In the meantime, the "Coney Island Eight" have already lost the crucial support of Democratic Councilman Domenic Recchia Jr., who serves as chairman of the council’s powerful Finance Committee. Recchia tells the Post, "I understand the sentiment that these businesses have been here a long time, but they also made a lot of money paying cheap rent all these years. If they really cared, I know firsthand that they had plenty of chances to buy these properties and fix them up, but they never did."

Never mind, of course, that the businesses were never offered leases lasting longer than a year or two, thus taking away their incentive to pour money into costly renovations. Or that bars like Cha Cha's and Ruby's submitted detailed plans to their landlord, Italian company Zamerpla, outlining improvements they intended to make if their leases were renewed. Recchia says "the stakes are too high to risk losing" the 360 new jobs that Zamperla estimates it will bring next summer after it tears down the old-timers and builds a year-round sports bar and restaurant.

Those theoretical jobs, incidentally, would be managed by Sodexo, a French cafeteria company that's paid $100 million in legal settlements to settle allegations of overcharging New York students and of denying black employees promotions. Linda Gross, spokeswoman for the Coney Island Eight, says her clients never had the opportunity to buy the property they lease, and accused Recchia of doing Mayor Bloomberg’s “bidding” as payback for the mayor “lobbying successfully” last year for Recchia’s Finance Committee appointment.

Here's video showing exactly the kind of festivities Coney Island could lose if the Bloomberg administration, using Zamperla as its puppet, sanitizes the Boardwalk:

[Via Amusing the Zillion]

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By John Del Signore in News on January 10, 2011 1:35 PM

Comments [rss]

lornagrl

btw.. there are some year around sports bars in Coney Island, and they are DEAD during the winter months. I fail to see how putting yet another year around sports bar in the area is going to be profitable.

Guest

Can't wait for the wrecking ball to come. As someone who has lived here for 45 years, i want the boardwalk cleaned up - finally. No more sticky tables with chairs ready to collapse. No more code-violation-filled filthy establishments, where you never know what kind of hot dog you're getting on any given day. One of those "businesses" already had a toilet collapse on someone; The Shoot The Freak pit is a result of a collapsing sidewalk/boardwalk about 11 years ago. Time to clean up Coney Island, i'm tired of bums urinating around there, asking me for money. I'm tired of Manhattanites supporting the filth because they want to come once a summer and feel like they're "one of the little people" and laugh about it all, then go back to their clean modern neighborhoods. and they have the NERVE to support this filth. It's the same old "not in my neighborhood" hypocrisy that I'd like to shove down their throats. KEEP THE FIGHT UP ZAMPERLA, THIS CONEY ISLANDER SUPPORTS YOU.

whitecastlerock

yeah those year round sports bar restaurants are a lock. Now that the ESPN zone closed up shop all of the bloated tourists need to hop on the subway to Coney Island-brilliant!

twophrasebark

Um... I'm trying to follow the logic here. We have to get rid of a bunch of small businesses... because they were profitable... so we can replace them with corporate owned businesses... that will be profitable?

What? Is this like when Bloomberg said cars were stuck everywhere in the snow because we couldn't declare a snow emergency because people wouldn't have anywhere to move their cars?

These guys really have to stay off the crack.

ANGRYGOD11

Thank you Councilman, for reminding profitable businesses they have no right to rent control nor the right to whine about not buying the property their business stands on for decades.