February 23, 2020 Your Neighborhood — Your News®
Month xx–xx, 2019
LOCAL
CLASSIFIEDS
PAG E 11
Locked out
Clark St. businesses
left in the dark on
station closure
BY BEN VERDE
Transit honchos are planning
to fast track repairs at Clark
Street subway station in Brooklyn
Heights, but business owners in
the station say they’re being left in
the dark.
The Metropolitan Transit Authority
plans to shutter the station
for eight months while conducting
desperately needed repairs on the
station’s three elevators, which are
the only methods of reaching the
deep-underground station.
While agency offi cials sent out
a press release on the decision on
Feb. 14, shop owners in the station
say they were never informed
of the decision — which they fear
will be catastrophic to their bottom
line, and force some of them
to close.
“They didn’t tell us nothing
now,” said Chan Han, owner of
Han’s Market, a convenience store
housed in the station. Every business
owner interviewed by the
Brooklyn Paper on Monday afternoon
said they were similarly unaware.
Salahuddin Aziz, the owner of
a newspaper stand inside the sta-
Continued on page 10
UNAMUSED
Coney boutique to close
following massive rent hike
Van strikes two cars in hit-and-run
BY TODD MAISEL
Police are searching for the
driver of a dollar van who hit two
vehicles and crashed into a light
pole, before abandoning the vehicle
at the scene in Flatlands on Thursday
evening, according to authorities.
No one was reported injured in
the chaos, but the incident resulted
Diana Carlin will have to close her Coney Island novelty shop Lola Star in the
face of a 400-percent rent hike. Photo by Caroline Ourso
in “extensive” damage to the cars,
police from the 63rd Precinct said.
The mayhem began at about 4:45
pm near Flatbush and Utica avenues
after the van driver smashed
into a silver Subaru — and then
tried to fl ee, according to police.
The Subaru driver then gave
chase toward Schenectady Avenue
and Avenue I, where the van driver
A Coney Island souvenir shop
will shutter in the wake of a massive
rent hike at the hands of
Luna Park’s international landlord,
according to the owner.
Dianna Carlin — who’s owned
Lola Star Souvenir Boutique on
the Coney Island boardwalk for
19 years — has spent months negotiating
the amusement park’s landlord,
Zamperla, after the Italian corporation
rent hike, she claimed.
Carlin hoped to hammer out
a deal at a fi nal meeting with
Zamperla on Tuesday, but the
corporation would only allow a
400-percent hike, which the business
owner said would destroy
her small t-shirt shop.
“At the meeting, I offered
them double the rent I was paying
previously. That is a 100-percent
rent increase and they fl atly
refused,” Carlin said. “They did
not decrease their offer to less
than the 400-percent rent increase
plowed into a Volkswagen — before
speeding into a nearby light pole,
cops said.
The fugitive driver then jumped
out of the van and ran from the
scene before police arrived, according
to authorities.
No arrests have yet been made,
and the investigation remains ongoing,
police said.
BY ROSE ADAMS
a rent increase with
demanded a 500-percent
they have been demanding
for the past few months…I’m
heartbroken to say that means
my business will be leaving Coney
Island.”
Zamperla — the Italian corporation
that operates the six-acre
amusement district — fi rst announced
the rent increases facing
six Riegelmann Boardwalk
businesses in November, two
months before the tenants’ eightyear
leases were set to expire.
Five of the businesses, including
85-year-old Ruby’s Bar
and Grill and 57-year-old Paul’s
Daughter, negotiated agreements
with Zamperla by the Dec.
31 deadline. Some insiders say
that the other tenants received
smaller rent increases than Carlin.
“I believe the deal was fair,”
said one business owner, who
claimed he faced a 25- to 75-percent
rent hike. “I would’ve liked
to pay less, but I believe it was a
fair deal.”
Carlin, unable to pay the
400-percent hike, received two
Continued on page 10
The van plowed into two cars and a light pole. Photo by Todd Maisel
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