Problems of a shopkeeper

One of my big problems is that I know too many people on Court St. Not just regular people but the business owners. It always comes back to bite me in the ass.

You might remember that I led the charge against the Business Improvement District that they wanted to institute on Court St. This is the scam where they collect extra money from property owners to hire homeless people to sweep and put up flowers and bullshit like that. Basically extorting money from businesses to do the stuff that the city should do anyway. Most of the dues goes towards administration because they have to hire someone to run it. This sinecure always goes to some politically connected douchenozzle who has that rice ball while he works on someone's campaign. So I went to the meetings and lead the charge against it.

The way it works is they charge the landlords up to 5% of their Real Estate Tax as an additional assessment for this business improvement district. Which the landlord will then pass on to the stores. That is about $3,000 to me. For what? So some crack head welfare baby daddy can get a pretend job pushing a broom while he sexually harasses woman passerby's. It seems that there had to be a vote and they needed a certain percentage to not approve it and it wouldn't get through. I went up and down Court St and got enough proxies to stop it in it's tracks. I had all the guineas from Carroll Gardens and all the Syrians who owned stuff up by Atlantic Avenue and all of the Chinese people who owned anything. The people who were for it were the incipient hipsters boutiques and the chain stores and banks.

This all happened in 2008. The other guys who helped me were Joe from Marco Polo, Vinnie from Mastellone's, the guys from Good Food and John who owns Sal's pizza. Well Vinnie and the Good Food guys sold out this year to banks who have their store fronts. Joe is still with me but his solution is to put out a hit on somebody. The problem is with John from Sal's Pizza.

Carroll Gardens is a land of beefs. You get in a beef with a guy and you don't talk for twenty years. Like Louie from Casa Rosa. We were very friendly until one day he screwed me on a big dinner and I stopped going to his joint. He lost  about $10,000 a year in business that I brought to Marco Polo. You know client dinner's and big events. I used Marco Polo for the show which really pissed Louie off.

There was a similar problem with John. I tried to bring some business to him but the scumbag producer refused to send the crew there or let anyone eat there. So he was kind of pissed at me. Or jealous. I have told this story before. One day I was walking by and he called me over. "Hey I am getting my own reality show." "Wow that's great man even though it is not all that it is cracked up to be. What channel?" "Channel 4 WNBC." "Holy shit that is network not cable. That's a big deal. What's it going to be called?" "You ever here of Gordon Ramsey?"

That's right. His restaurant Mama Maria's was on Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares. They trashed the shit out of him. They went to his freezer and took out chicken cutlets that had been there since I was in grammar school. Once the wife saw that she refused to ever go there again. So we stopped going every week. I would try to have a slice of pizza or three whenever I could but it was not the same. So I knew he was hurt that I didn't go there anymore.

Well I run into Vinnie Mazzone of Ace Hardware and he tells me they are starting up this BID bullshit again. And that John the pizza guy is for it now. That he changed his mind and so should I.  I have to laugh. I haven't changed my mind. But I did change my lease so the landlord can't pass the increase on to me. So it won't affect me. I shouldn't give a shit. I will go to speak against it but I am too sick to lead the charge this time.

My problem will be is that I bet they will try to  elect me to the oversight committee. I don't have the time or the strength for that.

I need to move to Florida.