Thomas Breen photos
Four of the five Hill corner stores that city and state shuttered.
Ned Woods: Still "a lot of choices" in the neighborhood.
Walking home on Sylvan Avenue, Ned Woods saw that the corner store where he “plays the numbers” was closed — with a large red “Stop-Work Order” sign taped across the front door.
Thanks to a city-state sweep of problem businesses in the Hill Tuesday, Woods would have to seek out another spot in the neighborhood to place his daily bet.
The Independent spoke with Woods in the cold afternoon sunshine Tuesday at the corner of Sylvan Avenue and Orchard Street.
That’s the home to Super Star Food Market, which was one of five Hill corner stores temporarily shuttered after a city-state sweep.
Woods wasn’t particularly perturbed by the government-forced closing of the store down the block from his Sylvan Avenue home.
“We’ve got a lot of choices” in the neighborhood to buy groceries, milk, cigarettes, and “play the numbers,” he said.
Mayor Elicker (center) with city health and safety officials on Howard Avenue.
A few minutes earlier, Mayor Justin Elicker stood alongside a half-dozen representatives from the city’s Health, Building, Police, and Fire Departments a few blocks away to explain what precipitated the closing of these five Hill corner stores.
He said that, in partnership with representatives from the state Department of Labor and the Department of Revenue Services, a host of city inspectors visited five specific corner stores across the neighborhood.
Hill top cop Lt. Justin Marshall said that the city picked these five venues because of recurring reports and complaints of loitering, littering, drug use, drug dealing, and sometimes even violence inside and outside of the shops.
All five, Elicker and Marshall said, drag down the “quality of life” in the surrounding area. And all five, after Tuesday morning’s inspections, are now temporarily closed — because of a mix of health code, business code, and “payroll and insurance” violations.
“These places will be allowed to open when they fix these violations,” Elicker said.
The corner stores that the city and state shuttered on Tuesday included Super Star Food Market at 96 Sylvan Ave., Howard Mini Mart at 660 Howard Ave., 4 Jays at 198 Davenport Ave., J&N Food at 131 Lamberton St., and 7 Heaven at 129 Sylvan Ave.
City Environmental Health Director Rafael Ramos.
Elicker touted the effort as part of a broader “corner store accountability initiative” that his administration kicked off in Fair Haven last month.
The goal: to “ensure that businesses are following the law” and to focus on corner stores that have been “problematic.”
What specific code violations did the city find at each of these now-shuttered venues?
City Environmental Health Director Rafael Ramos said that the Howard Mini Mart suffered from “food contamination,” a “leaking roof,” and a “rodent infestation.”
Elicker said that the other corner stores had “payroll and insurance” problems.
The mayor said that this initiative is different from the interdepartmental neighborhood health and safety sweeps that date back to the Harp Administration because those saw a host of city inspectors combing through neighborhoods, looking for everything from broken sidewalks to protruding tree limbs to dilapidated front porches.
This effort “focuses particularly on corner stores with negative activity,” he said.
State Department of Labor “Stop-Work Order” signs posted to the front doors of the Super Star Food Market and J&N Food offered some more details as to what exactly that means.
The orders posted to both stores’ front doors stated that each failed to “secure the payment of worker’s compensation in violation of sections 31 – 284 subsection (b) by failing to obtain coverage that meets the requirements of section 31 – 284.”
The order posted to the Super Star Food Market’s door also stated that that business had violated state worker’s comp laws by “misrepresenting employees as independent contractors” and by “materially understating or concealing payroll.”
The orders give the respective business owners 10 days to file a petition for a hearing with the state Department of Labor Wage & Workplace Standards Division. They also state that the employer can be fined $1,000 per day if they continue to conduct business in violation of the stop-work order.
The Independent was not able to reach the owners of any of these five stores for comment by the publication time of this article. One employee at the J&N Food market on Lamberton Street was closing up shop Tuesday afternoon when the Independent visited and asked for a comment.
“Today is a vacation,” he said with a smile. “Come back tomorrow.” He declined to say anything more about the city’s and state’s inspection earlier in the day.
Thank you for the crack down on the public nuisance to our great city.