nothin Convenience Store Crackdown Hits Fair Haven | New Haven Independent

Convenience Store Crackdown Hits Fair Haven

Allan Appel Photo

Locked door of Victors Market on Grand and Blatchley, with Stop Work order posted on the Grand Ave side.

In response to to a spate of quality of life complaints from neighbors, four convenience stores in Fair Haven were fined for violations like selling loosies and untaxed cigarettes and two of them were temporarily shut down last week for wage and labor violations.

More enforcement is on the horizon.

That news emerged at Thursday night’s regular meeting of the Fair Haven Management Team, which drew two dozen participants to the police substation at Blatchley and Clay streets.

Jay-Nez Grocery on Ferry at Chambers.

The stores in question were the Jay-Nez Grocery on Ferry Street at Chambers; Victor’s Market on Grand Avenue at Blatchley; the Smokers Shop in the little mall on Grand at East Pearl; and the G‑Mini Mart on Ferry Street at Peck, according to Fair Haven District Manager Lt. David Zannelli.

As the calls mounted, I drove by personally,” Zannelli said.

The most frequent complaints that Zannelli logged were loitering, public drug use, often in front of kids, and selling loosies.

Since his taking over the area, Zannelli said, he and his officers surprise-visit these locations and in all instances have given warnings. He left his card with his telephone number and urged the store operators to obey the rules, including not operating between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., pursuant to laws passed by the city back in 2004.

The violations — and complaints — continued. Zannelli gathered his team, which included Laurie Lopez from the Livable City Initiative (LCI) and officials fromstate offices that monitor tobacco and revenue and wage and labor practices.

They inspected these four locations on Friday, Oct 27, and found loosie and cigarette taxation violations at all the locations, he said. Smokers Shop and G Mini Mart were fined; they may continue doing business, but must address the violations and pay the fines.

Lopez flanked by Fair Haven Alders Ernie Santiago and Jose Crespo at the management team meeting..

At Jay-Nez and Victors the visitors found wage and labor violations that resulted in stop-work orders.

As of Thursday afternoon Jay-Nez was back in operation, but Victors remained shuttered, with the tangerine-colored stop-work order taped to the Grand Avenue side window. According to the citation issued, the business would be fined $1,000 a day if it continues operating in violation of the order.

A stop work order was issued from the State Department of Labor, Wage, and Workplace Standards Division for failing to secure workers’ compensation and misrepresenting employees as independent contractors.” Zannelli explained in starker terms what was happening: Using drug users and prostitutes as employees.”

Violations of laws for collecting cigarette taxes are monitored by the Department of Revenue Services, whose staffers were also part of the team Zannelli had assembled.

We don’t shut down the stores. State tobacco and state labor [officials] do,” Zannelli said, for wage and tax violations. If however state officials lead the police to situations of drug dealing, then the police move in and handle that. It’s broken-windows policing,” Zannelli added, nipping issues in the bud before, for example, a location where small drug transactions could escalate into a drug market.

We would have moved sooner, but we had to assemble the team,” he said.

By Thursday afternoon, Victors was still shuttered. In this reporter’s visit to the other locations, Jay-Nez had apparently addressed issues and paid a fine. The clerk there, who asked not to be identified. said she knew nothing about last week’s closing.

She became busy serving customers. One man came in and bought two bags of chips and a small package of Benadryl. Then another cusomer came in and slid coins across the counter and asked for loosies. The clerk slid a blue and white box to him — an opened box of Newport cigarettes that apparently contained the loosies.

Lt. Zannelli

Over at Smokers Shop on Grand at East Pearl, Manager Sheraz Khan, who has been at the store for two years, said he had not been on duty when the inspectors came last week. It was routine,” he said. The revenue department. They checked the tobacco invoices. It was no problem.”

At G‑Mini Mart on upper Ferry Street, several men were hanging about. One said he was a regular and the owner let him sweep the street and do other chores in exchange, sometimes, for a sandwich.

The clerk on duty inside said the owner is a man named Gaji, but he could not be reached by press time.

The G Mini Mart on Ferry at Peck,operating as usual Thursday.

While loitering and public drug use were the main complaints that had spurred Zannelli to act, LCI’s Lopez told the management team participants that she has her eye on another problem.

A lot of these stores are open after 11 p.m.” in violation of city ordinances for convenience store hours,” Lopez said. That’s important because after 11 pm. no one is buying a quart of milk.”

In order for these stores not to pay the fine and just reopen again, Lopez said, We’re trying to find a criminal penalty” in addition to fines.

Working with the city’s corporation counsel and the state’s attorney, Lopez said, her office is exploring willful defiance of a cease and desist order” as a crime that could land not only the store operator but also the landlord of the building in jail.

In her 16 years of working the neighborhood, convenience store operators have often told her that they do their most business between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m.

It will make a difference to know that they can be criminally prosecuted,” she said.

That they” includes the owner of the building who is ultimately responsible for control of the property,” she added.

Smokers Shop on East Pearl and Grand

Tags:

Sign up for our morning newsletter

Don't want to miss a single Independent article? Sign up for our daily email newsletter! Click here for more info.


Post a Comment

Commenting has closed for this entry

Comments

Avatar for CT DRV

Avatar for THREEFIFTHS

Avatar for 1644

Avatar for susie the pit bull

Avatar for THREEFIFTHS

Avatar for robn

Avatar for TrumanStreetResident

Avatar for Smitty