4 times • NOVEMBER 5, 2015 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.timesnewsweekly.com Civic fumes over proposed bike lanes around Juniper Valley Park BY KELLY MARIE MANCUSO editorial@ridgewoodtimes.com @KellyMMancuso Members of the Juniper Park Civic Association (JPCA) voiced opposition over the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) plans for bike paths along Juniper Boulevard North at the group’s monthly meeting on Oct. 29. According to JPCA President Robert Holden, the DOT proposed two options for bike lanes along the street surrounding Juniper Valley Park. “These kinds of things are going to disrupt us for a while,” Holden said. “They’re trying to take neighborhoods that don’t really need or want bike lanes, and they’re trying to actually destroy that area around the park.” According to Holden, the bicycle routes were originally requested by the Ridgewood Property Owners and Civic Association (RPOCA) back in 2011 in an effort to expand the existing bike route network in Ridgewood while providing cyclists with easier access to surrounding neighborhoods. Option A of the DOT’s proposal calls for the creation of a two-way, 9-foot-wide bike lane located between the curb and the parking lane along the eastbound side of the boulevard. A 3-foot-wide painted buffer would also be installed to separate the bike lanes from the parking lane. A total of 10 parking spaces would also be lost under this version of the plan. “It would be a traffic jam like Metropolitan Avenue, and we don’t want that,” Holden added. The plan also drew outrage from JPCA members who expressed concern over traffic tie-ups and cyclists who disobey traffic laws. Phil Wong of the civic group Elmhurst United shared his own experiences driving next to similar bike lanes along Queens Boulevard. “The cyclists that use the bike lanes don’t look at the traffic lights. They think the traffic light is not for them,” Wong said. “Vision Zero pays for these bike lanes, but it was slapped together in such a hurry that many of the details were not figured out.” The second alternative, or Option B, would create two standard bike lanes on either side of the street similar to the ones recently installed along 80th Street. Under this plan, the current 12-foot-wide painted median at the center of Juniper Boulevard North would be reduced to a 4-footwide buffer so as to accommodate the new bike lanes. When asked to choose between the two plans, JPCA members reluctantly voted for Option B during the meeting, despite vocalizing their desire to have no bike lanes surrounding the park. “This plan, although it’s not great, is much better than Option A,” Holden explained. “We were told that we have to pick either Option A or B. We don’t really want bike lanes, but if the mayor is pushing it and we have to take it, then we’d rather take Option B.” Holden believes that Community Board 5 members may be leaning in favor of Option A, but plans to fight the DOT should this version of the plan go into effect. “If they try to throw this at us, we’ll go to court,” Holden argued. “We’re not going to let them do this.” Feds: Ridgewood store illegally sold opioids BY ROBERT POZARYCKI rpozarycki@ridgewoodtimes.com @robbpoz No prescriptions were needed at a Ridgewood pharmacy where thousands of oxycodone pills were illegally sold over the counter, federal prosecutors announced last Thursday. Chopin Chemists, located on Fresh Pond Road at Palmetto Street, was shuttered on Oct. 29 after its owners — Lilian Jakacki (aka Wieckowski), 49, and Marcin Jakacki, 35 — were named in an indictment charging them with dealing more than 500,000 oxycodone pills over a five-year period out of both the Ridgewood shop and another drug store they owned in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. According to U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara, the Jakackis “were part of one of the largest opioid painkiller diversion schemes ever uncovered in New York,” distributing the highly addictive medication with “obviously fake prescriptions or no prescription at all, helping fuel the growing crisis of prescription pill abuse.” “Whether it is the corrupt doctor writing unwarranted prescriptions; the greedy pharmacist selling pills based on fake or no prescriptions; or the streetlevel drug dealer peddling painkillers directly to the addicted, we must confront this escalating epidemic at every level,” Bharara said. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) found, in an audit of the defendants’ Brooklyn store, that it dispensed 400,000 oxycodone pills without prescriptions as of 2013, and that the Chopin pharmacies also accepted more than 1,300 fraudulent prescriptions at both the Brooklyn and Ridgewood stores, releasing an excess of 160,000 pills. In some instances, prosecutors noted, the fraudulent prescriptions were made out to brand names such as “Coach” or “Chanel.” Between September and October of this year, authorities said, an undercover DEA agent unlawfully purchased hundreds of oxycodone pills from the Ridgewood location in transactions that Marcin Jakacki allegedly coordinated. The illegal sales allowed the Jakackis to live the good life, Bharara noted, as they used the illegal proceeds to purchase a $2 million home in Greenwich, Connecticut. A third individual — Robert Cybulski, 30 — was charged with illegally purchasing tens of thousands of pills from the Brooklyn location, using multiple fraudulent prescriptions to obtain the medication. Lilian Jakacki was additionally charged in a separate indictment for allegedly swindling more than $750,000 in fraudulent Medicare prescription drug claims filed out of the Brooklyn location between 2010 and 2014. Each suspect faces up to 20 years behind bars if convicted. JPCA also wants a quieter expressway BY KELLY MARIE MANCUSO editorial@ridgewoodtimes.com @KellyMMancuso Hoping to reduce noise from passing traffic, the Juniper Park Civic Association (JPCA) called last week on government officials to repave part of the Long Island Expressway through Maspeth and Middle Village. The expressway was repaved with a concrete roadbed instead of asphalt during a lane expansion and roadway repairs roughly 15 years ago. The group blames the concrete roadbed for the ongoing disruptive sounds heard by homeowners and residents on the streets surrounding the thoroughfare. “Through Maspeth, Middle Village and Elmhurst, we have a concrete roadbed. No other neighborhood along the LIE has that,” JPCA President Robert Holden said at the group’s Oct. 20 meeting. “We have a loud, constant sound. It’s affecting our whole existence.” Holden claims that sound meters installed near houses surrounding the expressway registered a harmful 80 decibels due to the ambient noise from the roadway. The majority of the noise, Holden explained, is from the constant thumping of tires hitting gaps in the concrete roadbed. “The sound is horrendous,” said JPCA Treasurer Tony Nunziato. “The highway is terrible and the noise if horrific. It’s affecting our quality of life. It has to go.” The group also took issue with the dead shrubbery and gray concrete sound barriers along the expressway. “We look like we’re in prison,” Nunziato added. “They say that Montauk is the end, well Maspeth is the beginning. How come our entrance to Long Island is such a terrible entrance? It’s a terrible doormat.” Nunziato and his fellow JPCA members called upon Congresswoman Grace Meng, Assemblywoman Margaret Markey and state Senator Joseph Addabbo to join them in the battle to repave this portion of the expressway with blacktop. “We want this to be paved over with asphalt, which is much quieter,” Holden said. “We’re going to take on this big battle again.” RIDGEWOOD TIMES/Photo by Robert Pozarycki The gates were down at Chopin Chemists on Fresh Pond Road in Ridgewood Thursday after its owners were indicted on charges that they illegally distributed thousands of oxycodone pills. RIDGEWOOD TIMES/Photo by Kelly Marie Mancuso A diagram of the DOT’s proposed Option A version of the bike route plan slated for Juniper Boulevard North.
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