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Since 1978 • (718) 260–2500 • Brooklyn, NY • ©2019 14 pages • Serving Brownstone Brooklyn, Sunset Park, Williamsburg & Greenpoint Vol. 42, No. 43 • October 25–31, 2019
A float of President Donald Trump surfaced beneath the Carroll Street Bridge in Gowanus.
Creature from the depths
Scary Trump statue emerges from Gowanus Canal
Barbershop bandit!
GIVE US LIBERTY
Brooklyn to host pro women’s basketball team
The New York Liberty playing the Seattle Storm on August 11, 2019
at Barclays Center.
Marijuana’s makeover
Williamsburg dispensary wants to make pot respectable
NYPD CrimeStoppers
Adding door number three
Civic honchos demand a gender-neutral toilet
By Joe Hiti
Brooklyn Paper
The New York Liberty will be dribbling
into Brooklyn next year.
The city’s premier professional women’s
basketball team will be relocating
from the distant suburbs of Westchester
to Barclays Center in time for the 2020
season after billionaire entrepreneur Joseph
Tsia — who also owns the arena
and the Brooklyn Nets — purchased
the WNBA team in January.
Barclays Center’s president and
CEO said the move to Kings County
will help grow the team’s following in
the area.
“With many of our fans based in the
five boroughs, moving to Barclays Center
will make the Liberty more centrally
located, allowing us to bring back the
original fan base and attract new supporters,”
said David Levy.
In addition to the new location, the
Liberty also boast the first pick in the
upcoming WNBA draft next April, giving
the team an injection of young talent
to help the team’s on-court success
— which will come as a welcome development
after a measly 10-and-24 record
last season.
The move to Barclays will also expand
the potential audience to 8,000 seats per-
game, compared to the 2,100-seat capacity
of the Westchester arena where
the team played last season.
Tsia — the Tawianese-Candian cofounder
of Chinese e-commerce conglomerate
Alibaba — came under fire
earlier this month for blasting a fellow
basketball executive for his support
of the pro-democracy protests in
Hong Kong.
The 2020 WNBA season will tipoff
next May.
Photo by Kostas Lymperopoulos
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
He’s the Commander-in-need-ofa
bath!
A green-eyed float of President
Donald Trump surrounded by reptiles
buoyed in the fetid Gowanus Canal
over the weekend, leaving locals
baffled and amused at the cartoon-like
commander-in-chief, which trolled beneath
the Carroll Street Bridge.
“I think it’s pretty funny,” said Gowanus
Canal Conservancy head Andrea
Parker. “It’s creepy. And one thing I
really like about it is how it’s going in
and out of from under the bridge with
the tides.”
Readers of the local blog Pardon Me
For Asking first spotted the inflatable
president — donning his signature red
power tie — in Brooklyn’s Nautical Purgatory
during the neighborhood arts event
Gowanus Open Studios, leading some
Brooklynites to speculate that sculpture
was meant as a statement piece to mock
the Oval Office’s orange occupant.
“As we approached the old Figliolia
building, I jumped a few inches in the
air because I saw snakes and tentacles
writhing in the dark between two
parked cars.’” said Brad Vogel of the
Gowanus Dredgers canoe club. “Only
then did I see the Trumpian part of it
and the human figure.”
A representative for Gowanus Open
Studios did not return a request for comment
by press time.
Vogel could not make out the artist’s
identity, but described a “sort of
a gray, hooded figure.”
This is not the first time Trump has
had an imprint on the Gowanus, as a honcho
with the city’s Department of Environmental
Protection recently blamed
the controversial president for vetoing
a city plan to construct a massive sewage
tunnel under the canal.
“President Trump’s EPA is at it again:
ignoring science and facts when making
significant decisions that impact New
Yorkers’ lives,” department spokesman
Ted Timbers told the Brooklyn Eagle
at the time.
But Gowanusaurs have a good relationship
with the federal agency’s reps,
according to Parker, who said any anti-
Trump sentiment probably had different
motivations.
“I don’t think folks from the neighborhood
think that the EPA is ‘Trump’s
EPA,’” said Parker. “We have a very
good relationship with the folks over
at that agency.”
Photo by Kevin Duggan
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
They’re stoned-cold serious!
A new legal weed dealer opened its
doors to sickly stoners down on N. Fourth
Street in Williamsburg on Thursday,
where the pot vendors will rub shoulders
with other reputable storefronts in
the hopes of improving reefer’s reputation.
“Being on a block here with a Core-
Power yoga studio and a Whole Foods
in the neighborhood where people are
is really part of our goal of eliminating
that stigma,” said Jason Erkes, a senior
spokesman for Cresco Labs.
The pot shop near Bedford Avenue
has an array of cannabis-derived products
featuring varying levels of the psychoactive
compound Tetrahydrocannabinol,
or THC, which range in prices
from $75 to $130 — including vape
pens and cartridges, capsules, creams,
powders, and tablets.
Patients can buy up to a 30-day supply
— if they can get their hands on a
state-issued medical weed card , which
is available to New Yorkers suffering
from a short list of illnesses, such as
Brooklyn’s third medical marijuana dispensary Remedy opened in Williamsburg
on Oct. 17.
Photo by Kevin Duggan
Lou Gehrig’s disease, epilepsy, multiple
sclerosis, post-traumatic-stress disorder,
inflammatory-bowel disease, and
Parkinson’s disease.
Because federal law still considers
the sticky-green substance illegal, credit
card transactions are a no-go — meaning
Brooklynites looking for a dose need
to carry cash.
The dispensary — which boasts a
minimalist design, keeping in line with
the Cresco’s ‘health and wellness’ mantra
— is the third legal-pot-shop in the
borough.
The first Kings County dealer, Citiva,
By Rose Adams
Brooklyn Paper
Talk about a close shave!
Cops are searching for the gunman
who robbed a man mid-trim at a Williamsburg
barbershop on Oct. 14.
The victim was in the barber seat on
Maujer Street by Manhattan Avenue at
around 4:30 pm, when the robber entered
the shop, approached the victim, and stuck
a gun to his neck, before snarling “Give me
the watch,” according to an employee.
The heist was so strange and sudden,
some barbers assumed the robber was
a regular customer playing a practical
joke, the employee said.
“They thought at first that it was a guy
trying to play around with him,” said Flex
Rodriguez, a Mill Basin resident. “He
had a hoodie on, and they know someone
that looks just like that.”
But the presumed prank was no
laughing matter. Rodriguez said that
the victim, who wasn’t wearing a watch,
tried unsuccessfully to remove his ritzy
Cartier bracelets, but the bands can
only be removed with a screwdriver,
so he resorted to handing the robber
his cell phone, credit card, and $350,
police said.
Following the robbery, the victim told
employees that he didn’t know the bandit,
but that he had seen him around his
neighborhood, according to Rodriguez,
who suspects that the victim was targeted
because of his flashy outfits and expensive
car, which was double-parked outside
the shop.
“It’s got to be an inside job,” Rodriguez
said, before noting that the victim’s
uncle is a jeweler. “Supposedly the
watch is worth $10,000.”
A man robbed a barbershop customer at gun
point while the victim was getting a trim.
See POT on page 11
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
He wants to take the binary out
of going number one and number
two!
The Parks Department must
build a separate, gender-neutral
bathroom as part of a pricey makeover
of Fort Greene’s Commodore
Barry Park comfort station, even
though city law allows people to
use whichever loo they identify
with, according to a member of
Community Board 2’s Parks and
Recreation Committee.
“It doesn’t satisfy me that they
can use any bathroom they feel
Photo by Kevin Duggan
The city must install a gender-neutral bathroom at the
comfort station in Fort Greene’s Commodore Barry Park,
civic honchos demanded.
See PARK on page 5
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