Readers Write: Estate trustees were right to oppose market

The Island Now

With no disrespect to the editor of this newspaper who clearly perceives things differently than I do, I extend kudos to the mayor and the trustees of Great Neck Estates for denying Shop Delight a permit to operate in their village. 

These responsible officials did what their counterparts in the village of Great Neck Plaza did not do, namely, their homework.

I have nothing against Shop Delight but a business needs to be situated in a location where it will not only thrive but will also not disrupt the quality of life of a neighborhood. 

The officials of Great Neck Estates undoubtedly have observed what the rest of us in Great Neck Plaza have lived with since Shop Delight opened on Welwyn Road and they have chosen not to allow the Plaza’s self-inflicted chaos to spread north.

The “jeaniuses” who run the Plaza under the so-called leadership of Mayor Jean Celender and her trustees (the rubberstamps) allowed a busy supermarket to open, and then expand, in a location with grossly inadequate parking, with no truck loading dock facilities, on a single lane road in each direction which also services active bus traffic, active commuter traffic at the nearby train station, active residential traffic, and active traffic to Great Neck’s main post office which has no public parking facilities.

One needs only to stand at this location and observe–as undoubtedly the officials of Great Neck Estates did — the chaos that begins early in the morning and goes on until late evening. 

Double parking is the norm, the clearly marked pedestrian crossing zone is occupied by trucks making deliveries and personal autos that have commandeered it for illegal parking, and the fire safety zone in front of the store — which should be sacrosanct — is continuously disrespected as it has been converted into yet another area for illegal parking and truck deliveries.

And it doesn’t end there. 

Stand there for a few minutes. Besides observing the foregoing chaos, we are invaded by the cacaphony of blaring horns; frustrated drivers who can’t get by are competing with double and sometimes triple parkers waiting to grab a space which they think is about to open up or an understandably annoyed bus driver ‚ with a bus filled with passengers — tooting his horn in hopes that someone will move so the bus can make the turn around to the train station.

 Finally, and officials of the village of Kensington take note, your streets will become filled with the ubiquitous, abandoned shopping carts from Shop Delight just as our streets here in the Plaza and in Thomaston have become. 

When customers are forced to park blocks away, the last thing on their minds is to return the wagon to the store.

 Allowing a Shop Delight–or any other inappropriate business — to open where it doesn’t belong is mindless mismanagement and brings into question the ability of those persons, which in the case of Great Neck Plaza, are paid to serve us. 

I trust the officials of Great Neck Estates have figured this out and their residents should applaud their decision.

Mayor Celender thinks I’m mean spirited but all I have ever asked is that she — or any other public official — be accountable for their decisions, acknowledge mistakes and fix them, stop waxing poetic about a village that is no longer charming or beautiful, and moreover, enforce the law. 

That doesn’t happen in the Plaza.  

Stand across from Shop Delight for a few minutes and judge whether my observations have been untrue or embellished. 

What you won’t see out there is our $68,000 a year full-time mayor or any of her $10,000 a year trustees, or rarely a code enforcement officer, all of whom are ensconced in their private clubhouse that the rest of us know as Village Hall.

 

Alan A. Gray

Great Neck

 

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