The Welwyn/Shoreward area of Great Neck Plaza used to be a nice place to live before Jean Celender became mayor.
Since taking office over two decades ago, Jean Celender has eroded the quality of life in my neighborhood — and in much of Great Neck Plaza — to its lowest level in the 53 years that I have lived here.
Our mayor’s resume is plumped up with the largest salary in the Great Neck peninsula (most mayors in Great Neck take little or no salary), many perks, self-aggrandizing projects, and lots of newspaper photo-ops; in addition, there is also complete lack of concern or respect for the needs of her constituents.
Celender’s installation of hazardous brick sidewalks throughout the village, the gridlock-producing “traffic calming projects” that do everything except calm, and her ineptitude in dealing with vehicular/pedestrian casualties, double parked cars, and increasing numbers of closed businesses and boarded up storefronts on Middle Neck Road, are telling; but in my neighborhood, her greatest offense has been allowing Shop Delight to run the show—except that it’s a sideshow, and it’s not pretty.
Because of congestion caused by Shop Delight’s double parkers — a violation of Article 22 of Shop Delight’s Conditional Use Permit — it is impossible to drive from the Barstow Road roundabout to the post office without incident.
It is impossible to park on the street for Post Office business; it is impossible and dangerous for customers of the other stores to park in the lot in back of Shop Delight because reckless driving prevails.
There are frequent accidents in the area — among cars, between cars and buses (which should not be running on Welwyn Road), and between cars and pedestrians; there has even been a fatality on Welwyn Road, right across from Shop Delight.
Residents of the apartments on Welwyn Road are largely seniors and young families —many with infants — and with large numbers of Shop Delight employees illegally usurping resident parking spaces on Welwyn Road every day.
For more than 12 hours at a time, residents are deprived from parking even remotely close to where they live; and in spite of the fact that employee parking on the streets adjacent to the store is a violation of Article 5 of Shop Delight’s Conditional Use Permit, store owner Eddie Yakubov has actually encouraged this behavior by doing nothing to stop it.
Very large trucks, with loud engines running, make noisy deliveries in the fire zone in front of 8 Welwyn Road, as well as in the parking lot in back of the store, all day and all night, often at 2 a.m., 3 a.m. and 4 a.m., awaking sleeping residents — a violation of Article 5 of Shop Delight’s Conditional Use Permit.
Residents have to look forward wistfully to Saturdays and Jewish holidays, when Shop Delight is closed, so we can have peace and quiet and a place to park our cars; but then the chaos begins again.
Shop Delight’s original Conditional Use Permit, No. 434-A, was issued on June 20, 2007. Within a very short time, the store had violated so many of the contract’s provisions that the Village called for a public hearing regarding the permit, and issued a revised Conditional Use Permit, dated March 3, 2010; that was the last time that there was reasonable village oversight of Shop Delight’s violations.
Article 24 of Shop Delight’s 2010 revised Conditional Use Permit states: “If the Village hereinafter receives complaints or obtains information in connection with the premises about problems with double parking, deliveries, noise, odors, garbage, the loud or unruly congregation of customers or workers, or any other matter addressed by the conditions in the permit, then the public hearing regarding this permit may be re-opened on seven days notice to the applicant, at which time the conditions set forth herein may be supplemented.”
If the Village added Article 24 to Shop Delight’s Conditional Use Permit in 2010 in order to control their violations, I can’t help but wonder why these mega-violations still persist and why the village has not held Shop Delight properly accountable.
Does Shop Delight have special privileges? Do the rules not apply to Shop Delight?
If you are interested in reading about the full scope of Shop Delight’s violations, anyone can obtain a copy of Shop Delight’s Conditional Use Permit under the Freedom of Information Act; you simply have to go to the Village Hall at Gussack Plaza and request a copy of the permit. It might not make the best seller list, but you will certainly find it elucidating.
Muriel Pfeifer
Village of Neck Plaza
(We want our “Great” back!)
