Food trucks were dispatched by NYC offering free food in areas most affected
by Hurricane Ida. But some Bronx business owners are complaining
the good faith gesture has backfi red and hurt their revenue.
Photo courtesy Bobby Jaen
BRONX TIMES REPORTER,6 SEPT. 24-30, 2021 BTR
BY ROBBIE SEQUEIRA
Throggs Neck business
owners and leaders are expressing
frustration with New
York City’s management of
a free food relief aid program
aimed to help communities affected
by Hurricane Ida, which
they claim is undercutting revenue
for local mom-and-pop
shops.
Beginning on Sept. 9, the city
sent food trucks to designated areas
in the five boroughs most affected
by Ida to offer free food to
residents of the area. The program
— a joint effort by the NYC Emergency
Management Office and the
New York Food Truck Association
— has stationed food trucks
from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Earlier this month, Ida devastated
neighborhoods across
NYC leading to in-home drownings
at residences and rainfall
forcing New Yorkers out of their
homes. Since that time, various
food trucks, including Westchester
Burger Co., and Nathan’s, have
occupied the intersection of Lafayette
and East Tremont Avenue in
the Bronx. The city also doesn’t
require someone to have been affected
by Ida to receive the food.
“It was a good idea in thought,
but it’s hurting local businesses,”
said Bobby Jaen, executive director
of the Throggs Neck Business
Improvement District. “Instead of
hitting a home run, they struck
out miserably.”
Local business owners and
leaders in Throggs Neck believe
issues with the placement of freefood
vehicles and misuse of relief
aid resources is hurting small
businesses still making a postpandemic
recovery.
The program roll-out, the
Throggs Neck business community
says is “improper” and
has created a mess. Jaen said
that when business owners have
called the city for truck removal
for vehicles blocking their storefronts,
they had not received a
response from the NYC Emergency
Management Offi ce or the
New York Food Truck Association.
The Bronx Times also did not
receive a response from either organization
before press time.
The city, under then-Mayor
Michael Bloomberg, first started
its partnership with the NY Food
Truck Association for disaster relief
following Superstorm Sandy
sweeping through the city in 2012.
That partnership, according to
NY Food Truck Association officials,
served 278,000 free meals and
dispatched as many as 32 trucks
across the five boroughs on any
given day post-Sandy.
“We were able to integrate with
the City’s emergency response effort
so that we could provide hot
meals when and where people
needed them most,” said David Weber,
president of the New York Food
Truck Association said in a statement.
But business officials in the
Bronx said that wasn’t the case after
Hurricane Ida.
Jaen, who on Monday said
he’s had to relocate the trucks
from the Throggs Necks business
corridor, suggested better
suited locations for the food
trucks such as Crosby Avenue
and Bruckner Boulevard which
has access to schools.
He also noted a nearby
stretch from Lafayette Avenue
and Tremont Avenue located by
PS 92 on East 179 Street.
“Every family has to go to
one of these locations to pick
up their kids and wouldn’t
that be an appropriate place
to put these trucks,” Jaen said.
Businessowners like Nathan
Giraldi, owner of Cousins Pizzeria,
3579 E. Tremont Ave., told the
Bronx Times that the food trucks
destroyed his lunch hour business
for more than a week.
“I was pretty upset they were
opposite my business,” he said.
“They totally destroyed my lunch;
nobody showed up for lunch.
These food trucks wreaked havoc
on my business.”
Worst of all, Giraldi said he
saw some of his own regular customers
standing on line for the
food trucks.
“It wasn’t really serving the
affected people,” he said. “You
had everybody pulling over getting
free food.”
Throggs Neck business leaders
believe this recent issue is one of a
litany of what they consider “antismall
business” measures under
the outgoing Bill de Blasio administration.
“The city doesn’t care about
small business,” Jaen said. “De Blasio
has been against small business
the whole time.”
-with reporting by Christian
Falcone
NYC food relief rollout
frustrates businesses