Come back to western eateries
BY CHRISTINA SANTUCCI
Riding around Queens on a double-decker bus, about 70 hungry New Yorkers sampled the fare at three western Queens restaurants that had been closed for several days during the 10-day blackout.
The three-course event launched “Power Up Queens,” an initiative by NYC & Company to bring patrons to businesses that were affected by last week's power outage.
For the kickoff Borough President Helen Marshall and Cristyne Nicholas, the City's tourism czar, attended the launch, while Mayor Michael Bloomberg chose to have a hamburger at Donovan's in Woodside - another eatery participating in “Power Up.”
At Sapori d'Ischia in Woodside, the participants tasted appetizers, including Portobello mushrooms with pancetta, pizza margarita with fresh mozzarella and olives, and double-crusted pizza with Robbiola cheese and thin prosciutto.
“We'll find out this week if [the campaign] brings more people in,” said David Aviles, a server at Sapori d'Ischia, adding that he had already taken a few calls about “Power up Queens” since the launch the day before.
Aviles estimated that the restaurant lost somewhere from $12,000 to $18,000 in business alone and roughly $14,000 in food from the kitchen and the gourmet shop that is attached to the restaurant.
The restaurant's 15 employees also went without pay - which ranges from $1,200 to $1,500 a week - during the six days the popular Italian trattoria was closed.
After Con Edison installed a generator outside, the restaurant reopened on Sunday, July 23, and on Friday, July 28, Aviles said they were still not back on the area's power grid.
“We may be running on the generator for the rest of the summer,” he said.
Over at Sidetracks in Sunnyside for the main meal, co-owner Gerard Reilly said that local residents have filled the restaurant every night since they reopened on Tuesday, July 25 after being closed for eight days during the blackout.
“You kept thinking that maybe I will get to open this evening,” Reilly said, as he hosted the 50-person “Power Up” party. “I'm just glad to be back.”
After a dinner of filet of sole, ravioli, steak, and chicken, the bus drove to Mezzo-Mezzo in Astoria for dessert.
Charlie Kourakos, who has owned the Greek restaurant for eight years, said that the group dined on Baklava and galaktoburiko, milk custard.
“It was a very good idea because it helps to bring people to Queens,” Kourakos said. “I hope we are going to do it more often.”
During the blackout, which cut power to Mezzo Mezzo for six days, Kourakos said that the restaurant lost between $17,000 and $18,000 in food alone, and “thousands” in business.
“We called Con Ed by Tuesday, and they told us that we would have power in four hours,” he said, explaining that the restaurant called their employees into work every day after hearing from the utility giant that power would be restored daily.
“We ended up having to pay employees on top of it,” Kourakos said. “That was the gimmick that Con Ed played, telling us all the time that it would be only four hours.”
Clinton blasts Con Ed
Stopping in several shops and sitting down for breakfast at Mike's Diner on 31st Street, Senator Hillary Clinton toured Astoria businesses that had been closed for several days during the 10-day blackout in Western Queens. Clinton blasted the Con Edison for its poor handing of the blackout.
“It is so distressing that we've had so much confusion, incompetence and misinformation that have compounded the damage that a power outage would have caused in the first place,” she said.
Clinton along with Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, State Senator John Sabini, Assemblymember Michael Gianaris, and Councilmembers Peter Vallone, Jr. and Eric Gioia, also called for support for the businesses, which lost millions in revenue and spoiled food.
“What I've been trying to do is to get the White House to declare it a disaster zone, even going over the head of the governor,” Clinton said during a press conference on 31st Street. “In our system the governor usually has to declare the disaster area for us to trigger federal help.”
So far, Governor George Pataki has said that he would not consider declaring the section of Western Queens hit by the blackout a disaster area unless asked to do so by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has said that he does not think Queens would qualify.
Instead, Bloomberg has asked for no-interest federal disaster loans for businesses, which lost both revenue and supplies during the power outage.
Over the weekend, Con Ed sent out more than 1,500 checks totaling almost $900,000 to customers, said Con Ed spokesperson Chris Olert. The maximum reimbursement from Con Ed for Western Queens customers has been capped at $7,000 for businesses and $350 for individuals and families.
However, business owners like Michael DiStefano, 38, who opened a Cold Stone Creamery less than a year ago, have said that the maximum reimbursement from the utility giant is not enough, and loans would pile debt upon the loans he already taken to start his business.
DiStefano said that he invested $400,000 in less than a year into opening the Cold Stone Creamery, one of four stores that Clinton visited last week. Now, he is faced with bankruptcy after losing $12,000 in ice cream during the week, which fell in the middle of one the busiest months of the year.
For Kostas Pavlakos, owner of Mike's Diner, the worst part of the blackout was the daily disappointment when he realized that power had not returned yet to his popular eatery.
“[Con Edison] didn't tell us how long it was going to take,” Pavlakos said. “It was a big loss. We have this problem every year in this area.”
Blackout businesses to sue Con Ed
A collective of at least 35 western Queens businesses announced that they planned to file a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Con Edison for spoiled products, lost profits, and damaged equipment that the storeowners said resulted from the 10-day blackout.
Their lawyers, Morelli Ratner PC, said that the suit's claim was for losses in the tens of millions of dollars and that they expected the number of plaintiffs to increase to about 100 by the time the lawsuit is filed.
“It will take a while to determine the scope of the damages,” said Rory Lancman, an attorney at Morelli Ratner, explaining that some businesses can't estimate their losses since their stores have remained closed since the blackout began and they are still incurring losses.
“These small businesses are the backbone of our economy in Queens, and Con Ed must be made to own up to its responsibility for failing to make the equipment and maintenance upgrades which Attorney General [Eliot] Spitzer identified over six years ago,” Lancman said at a press conference announcing the lawsuit.
His firm, Morelli Ratner, charged that Con Ed was responsible for the stores' losses due to their “gross negligence” in handling the blackout that left 25,000 customers and an estimated 100,000 without electricity for over a week.
Moreover, according to business owners, the true extent of their losses has yet to be determined.
“I have lost at least $10,000 in client revenue the past two weeks, and many other businesses suffered more,” said Frank Arcabascio, who owns Saloon Hair Salon in Astoria and is the president of the 30th Avenue Merchants Association. “Customers could not even get to us because the streets were blocked off, and those of us who are property managers and have tenants are being asked by those tenants to forgive rent and other monies owed because our tenants lost business as well.”
“All the experts said that this [repairs to the power grid] should have been done a while ago,” said Arcabascio, who added that he wished Con Ed had brought generators to stores with the most perishable goods. “We feel it is negligence because [Con Ed has] money to do upgrades, and they apparently don't do upgrades unless they have to.”
Michael DiStefano, the owner of the Cold Stone Creamery in Astoria, also said that he will be one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the power giant.
“I’ve lost over $12,000 in merchandise, most of my employees and thousands of dollars in equipment damaged by the blackout,” DiStefano said. “Not to mention thousands in sales, and I'm not even close to being able to re-open. I've lost the most important season of the year for me, and at this point I'm probably going to lose the business entirely.”
DiStefano said that to replace his main freezer and an air-conditioner would cost $45,000. He has already invested $400,000 into the business, which is less than a year old.
Businesses can find out specific information about loan programs by logging onto the Small Business Services site at www.nyc.gov/sbs.
Business losses continue to mount
According to a report issued by Congressmember Carolyn Maloney and compiled by her staff, nearly two-thirds of 63 businesses affected by the blackout lost more than $7,000 in food and supplies and less than one-fourth of the 63 surveyed had insurance that would cover their losses.
“Unfortunately, most small businesses do not have coverage for this type of loss,” said Jeannine Chanes, General Counsel of From the Ground Up. “Most policies only cover business interruption losses caused by property damage on the business premises itself,” she added. “Because the Queens blackout was likely caused by heat damage to Con Ed's high voltage lines, the only business owners who have coverage for their blackout losses are those who purchased off-premises power insurance that was specifically designed to cover this type of loss,” Chanes said.
Several business owners said that their losses were much higher than the maximum reimbursement amount. Dimitris Kosmidis, manager of Titan Foods, said that the Astoria grocery store on 31st Street lost about $200,000 during the blackout.
In addition, many business owners told Maloney's surveyors, who called and visited hundreds of businesses in the affected western Queens area, that they felt they now had to “win back public trust in the freshness of the products they are selling,” according to the report.
Of the stores that had damages of less than $7,000, most had losses that are not covered by the Con Ed reimbursement, and only one business said that the $7,000 offered by Con Edison would cover their losses.
“$7,000 is just a drop in the bucket for some of the hardest-hit businesses in my district,” Maloney said. “Con Ed's aging and unreliable power grid caused this mess and they need to offer much more help to businesses devastated by the blackout.”
Of the 63 businesses surveyed, only 11 percent obtained generators on their own, and Kosmidis said that Titan Foods did not try to get a generator because they were told by Con Ed that power would be restored shortly.
Also included in the survey was a question asking business owners if they were contacted by Con Ed, or if they had tried to contact Con Ed themselves. Only one business owner said that they had been contacted by the utility company during the blackout, and more than half had tried to contact Con Ed.
Maloney charged that by relying on businesses to contact them, Con Ed could not have an accurate count of those affected by the blackout.
“There needs to be a better way for Con Edison to identify power outages than anecdotal reports and visual sightings,” the report concluded.
