Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Locals support the Flagship Diner


From DNA Info:

Dozens of Queens residents and several elected officials came together for a rally Tuesday to support a popular diner, which is currently facing a court battle with a new landlord after more than five decades in business.

The owners of The Flagship Diner, at 138-30 Queens Blvd., which has been a community fixture since 1965, said their new landlord — Jamaica-based White Rock Management — began harassing them shortly after White Rockpurchased the site for $6.125 million last year and promptly obtained permits to knock down the restaurant and replace it with a seven-story, mixed-use apartment building containing 64 units.

On Tuesday, patrons holding signs that read “No more buildings — Save the Flagship,” “Stop Unfair Landlord” and “Stop the Harassment White Rock,” said that the diner has been like a “second home.”

The diner's owners — Vincent Pupplo, Jimmy Skartsiaris and Frank Lountzis — said they were initially hoping to keep their business open until their lease expires in October 2019, and then most likely retire.

The landlord proposed to buy them out, offering each of them $100,000, but they turned it down, the owners said.

Since then, they said, the landlord sent them several "notices to cure," requiring them to address a variety of issues within five days if they wanted to avoid eviction, including accusations that their parking lot, sidewalk and back steps are in disrepair and have to be ripped up and replaced immediately.

The owners said that their lawyer was able to obtain a “Yellowstone injunction” for each notice which temporarily suspends the time period during which they must address the issues.

In July, the restaurant owners filed a lawsuit in the Queens County Supreme Court accusing the landlord of harassing them, with the first hearing scheduled for Sept. 19.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

The land is worth more than the protesters. The area is zoned for max development.
Those are the facts. It will go.

TommyR said...

Sucks, but this is why you buy your land if you REALLY want to keep your business around. If not, don't complain - you never "owned" it anyway. I support the local businesses I care about, but try to be unsentimental if they disappear.

(sarc) said...

You cannot force a person to run a business unless you are a fascist or communist...

Anonymous said...

I'm sure there will be room for a nice Red Lobster on the ground floor. Apologies to (sarc).

Anonymous said...

These people already lost.
The liberal appointed judges will do whatever the mayor wants regardless of the facts. Building towers are the rare only times judges side with landlords.
This diner's goose is cooked so friggan sad, I'm still upset about loss of the Scobee !!

(sarc) said...

Blogger Tommy Efreeti said...

"Sucks, but this is why you buy your land if you REALLY want to keep your business around. If not, don't complain - you never "owned" it anyway"

You NEVER OWN YOUR LAND!

Miss your tax payments, and the goon squad, heavily armed with guns, forcably confiscate your "property" and sell th right to pay the taxes to the next highest bidder.

Even if you purchase the necessary land and structures required for a business, the heavy confiscatory commercial Real Estate taxes create a system where one does not truly own ones' property, the arrangement is mearly a "rental" from the "benevolent" Government.

This coincides with the first plank of Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto:

"Abolition of private property in land and application of all rents of land to public purpose."

This also fits well with Karl Marx's second plank

"A heavy progressive or graduated income tax."

The exaggerated property values and inheritance tax structure performs well with Karl Marx's third plank as well:

"Abolition of all rights of inheritance."

The Founding Fathers of These United States are rolling within the cold graves...

Anonymous said...

Local Mom and Pop businesses have been getting squeezed out of our communities for nearly 2 decades. The conglomerate/brand business is being shoved down our throats along with over development at a grand scale. Even if a judge rules that the diner should stay the landlord/developer will increase the rent to a level that will force the diner owners to close. There is no win here (in this city) for the community or entrepreneurs. The business entrepreneur has been murdered and the body not yet discovered as it is in a secret mass grave with all the other Mom and Pop businesses that have been killed in this city in the last 20 years.

Is there a solution ? Yes there is. Stop patronizing the Big Box Branded businesses and eventually they will leave and landlords will have no choice but to honor Mom and Pop businesses and our communities.

Since millennials are living at home with the folks into their 30s and 40s I'm wondering who is going to fill the units and pay such high rents. Further the increase in apartment dwellings creates an arena of transiency. Transient stay communities are not conducive to family oriented neighborhood communities. The loss of privately owned property is in reality transient stay property no matter how you cut it. The overall effect diminishes the power that the community has over the local government and gives local government power over the community.

The cause and effect will eventually render this country a hapless, hopeless place to live.

JQ LLC said...

Anon 5 just wrote the best synopsis of the malignant cancer destroying the fabric of this city, 20 years sounds right too.

This is unrestrained capitalism, not capitalism. Although the Gentrification Industrial Complex misnomers it as "progress". The ramifications from this hyper-development is going to be catastrophic from the overpopulation, the breakdown of transit services( I wonder how the BQX is ever going to be built unimpeded with all this shit going on) and the massive burden it will toll on the infrastructure and police and fire depts and the potential damage and destruction that will surely come with the next major hurricane. Look at Houston and Southern Florida, those cities are practically destroyed.

I happened to be in L.I.C the other day and saw all those behemoth towers so close to each other. It's doubtful anyone will be occupying all of them or if there is that token sliver of affordable rentals that they allegedly provided to get that developer welfare tax abatement. One thing for sure is that those towers are a virtual environmental hazard and do not belong there.

And it's going to get worse now that the 14% mayor is about to be re-elected.

Anonymous said...

I worked at this dump. Crack head Bengali bus boys would harass me on the floor for my tips, luke warm food that's been sneezed on by the drunk cooks. Need more? I had to go to the Dept of Labor to get the rest of my pay since they took out money for my dam apron. Close it down. PLEASE