You would think that the Village of Great Neck Plaza business district is booming based on the response of Village of Great Neck Plaza trustees to a proposal by the owner of the Shop Delight supermarket for a second store.
But it’s not.
The Village of Great Neck Plaza shopping district, like much of Great Neck, is actually dotted with vacant storefronts.
That did not stop Plaza trustees from giving the cold shoulder to a proposal by Shop Delight owner Edward Yakupov to move a butcher shop and fish market currently in the basement of the supermarket to its own location on Welwyn Road three stores down.
One trustee said he was concerned that customers would ignore a cross walk to get to a parking lot the supermarket leases from the Great Neck Park District.
As if the store’s patrons were school children in need of a crossing guard, and the village has no ability to ticket shoppers for jaywalking.
Mayor Jean Celender and Trustee Gerry Schneiderman said the existing supermarket has repeatedly violated a conditional-use permit that restricts deliveries to 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Wednesday and complained that trucks parked and offloaded on the street rather than in offloading zones. Celender also noted the traffic generated by the market and its close proximity to nearby residences.
All of which raises several questions.
If delivery trucks and Shop Delight have so blatantly violated parking restrictions and the store’s conditional-use permit why hasn’t the village done more to enforce them.
A review of village records shows that Shop Delight has only been ticketed seven times in the past eight years and the store’s conditional-use permit has yet to be challenged.
When asked about the lack of tickets, Celender said the village only has four enforcements officers.
But if the supermarket is such a problem why not focus the enforcement officers on the supermarket until they complied with village restrictions?
The village did lay the groundwork last week to increase village fines from $350 an incident to a sliding scale starting at $350 for a first offense and rising to as much as $1,000 for a third.
But sliding scales are meaningless unless the tickets are issued.
More important are the village’s restrictions on delivery times reasonable and just what kind of businesses does the village hope to attract? And what message does the village’s approach send to other businesses seeking to locate in Great Neck Plaza — particularly those which might actually be successful enough to draw customers to the Plaza.
We don’t know too many pharmacies, furniture stores and electronics stories that could meet the village’s delivery restrictions.
So if not those stores, who?
Brick and mortar stores in Great Neck Plaza and local shopping districts across the North Shore already face increased competition from the internet as well as shopping malls such as The Americana and Roosevelt Field.
This leaves service businesses such as restaurants, supermarkets and butcher stores playing a more important role in filling storefronts in local shopping districts.
The Plaza, like all local governments, should be sensitive to the needs of residents and enforce laws under which businesses operate.
They should also be reasonable in how they treat existing businesses and those seeking to open there.
