Supervisor and Deputy Super invite merchants to tell their troubles

September 23, 2011
With 12 comments since publication
by Christine Yeres

At the invitation last week of Supervisor Barbara Gerrard and Deputy Supervisor Elise Mottel, about 30 downtown Chappaqua merchants came together in a conference room at town hall last Tuesday night to report on the vicissitudes of commercial life in the downtown hamlet and make contact with one another.

Two Republican candidates for office, Bob Kirkwood and Rich Diefenbach, were present as well.

Need for a merchant group of some kind

Several merchants are relatively new to town and were eager to join—or form—a merchant group or chamber of commerce.  Some were discouraged that they hadn’t yet found a cohesive, active merchant organization.  [There have been two in town over the years: a Chappaqua/Millwood Business Association of about 25 retail business members organized by Barry Mishkin of Family Britches, and a Chappaqua Chamber of Commerce that languished a couple of years ago after an attempt to organize professional services providers.] 

“It’s more effective for us to promote one another to our customers,” said a merchant from Lower King Street, at least those who are not in direct competition with one another.  “I regularly recommend your shops to my customers,” she said to the group.

Vinny Milazzo, owner of the Chappaqua Village Market, told Gerrard that all the merchants should be represented on the town website.  Another merchant asked him, “Do you think people really look at the town website?”  “Yes, absolutely they do,” responded Gerrard.  “The town website gets 1,000 visitors per week.  People regularly consult it for information.”  The town, Gerrard said, is working to update its website and advised the merchants to contact New Castle Media Center (914-861-2717) to help get out the word about their businesses.

Beautification

Healthy Choice Pharmacy owner (and landlord of Starbucks’) Phil Altman, told the assembled merchants and town board members that the landscaper who designed his planter contents had offered, in exchange for permission to display his landscaping business card, to plant others in the neighborhood as well, at no charge.  Altman said the landscaper couldn’t get permission from the town to do so. “He must not have talked to any town board member,” said Gerrard. “We would have been very interested.” 

“What can we do about our facades?” one merchant lamented. “The landlords are the ones who’re responsible,” answered another merchant.  Another noted that there is often garbage overflowing from the receptacles near Starbucks.  “Isn’t it the town’s business to empty them?”  Gerrard said she would ask that the receptacles be watched more closely.

Perennial paucity of parking

Merchants voiced dissatisfaction with parking limits, suggesting that traffic cops were being too aggressive in issuing tickets.  Gerrard informed the group that—at merchants’ request—the town had just recently changed one hour parking areas to allow two hour parking instead.  At the same time, police had stepped up enforcement—also at the request of several merchants, who believed that cars were overstaying their welcome, preventing other customers from parking. 

One merchant described her customers’ horror at seeing a car booted in front of her shop on Lower King Street.  Gerrard knew the case exactly. “That car,” she explained, “owed the town $1,000 in parking tickets!”  Couldn’t the police have towed the car way instead, the merchant wondered.

Apart from interruptions due to construction, everyone recognizes that parking is the key to downtown flow of traffic. Erik Nicolaysen suggested that the town find a way to track repeat parking violators, which would indicate that the owner is parking and taking the train—and willing to pay a $15 parking ticket for the opportunity. 

Several merchants said they try to park their own cars—and make their employees park theirs, too—in spaces most distant from their shops, leaving the closest spaces for customers. They encouraged others to do the same.

Someone noted that real estate brokers descend en masse into town on Tuesday mornings, when brokers meet to visit one another’s open houses.

“Would three-hour parking limits be better?” someone asked.  Gerrard responded that it would be counterproductive to make parking limits complicated. 

Gerrard said that she would speak to the Chief of Police about the ticketing situation.

Events for kids are good, but some for adults are needed

Supervisor Gerrard informed merchants of the upcoming Ragamuffin Parade on Sunday, October 23, a popular Halloween tradition in the hamlet, and the annual tree lighting in early December.  “This is a family-oriented town,” said Gerrard, “and events such as this should help bring customers to the downtown.”

One merchant advised “limiting the carnival atmosphere.”  Running sales all the time, she said, conditions customers to expect—and wait for—sales. She recommended running upscale events that adults would want to attend rather than—or in addition to—kid-friendly events.

Another added, “And I’m sick of ‘Shop Local’—we need to get a hipper, sharper message.  We need to up the bar.”

Erik Nicolaysen asked whether merchants had noticed an uptick in traffic on Saturdays when the Chappaqua Farmers Market is open at the train station.  “We don’t really feel it on our side of town,” a merchant from Lower King Street responded.

Bridge nears completion

Many merchants believe that both actual and expected construction delays continue to discourage shoppers from entering the town.  Gerrard told them that the bridge would basically be completed in mid-October, then finishing work would take place on the stonework, lighting and sidewalks—followed by the removal of the unsightly pedestrian bridge, which will free up parking spaces.

“All of a sudden there are like 30 guys working all at once now,” said one merchant.  “I’d be happy if there were 50 guys working there,” Gerrard responded, “to get this bridge finished!”

New eatery in town

When Elise Mottel mentioned the arrival of a new restaurant in Grappolo’s abandoned space, Roy Reeves introduced himself as the newcomer.  Reeves was proprietor of Katonah’s Deer Park Tavern, destroyed by a fire in January 2010.  There was a general murmur of approval that another restaurant was coming to town. Restaurants are held in high regard, since they bring the possibility of foot traffic extended to after-hours.

Reached yesterday, Reeves confirmed that this was the case with his Bissell House restaurant and bar in Ridgefield, Connecticut which he opened three years ago. “We’re really the only restaurant on Main Street.  And since we opened, I can’t tell you the number of merchants who have come up to us and said that the flow of people has been amazing.”  At the moment, the space is getting a complete interior renovation, a new kitchen and new bar.  The fare will be “New American, seasonally changing, and making use of a lot of local purveyors,” said Reeves.  He’s still deciding on a name for the eatery, which will open in early November. 

Rumor of another nail salon

“I’ve heard that the [now empty] Indigo space is going to be leased to another nail salon,” a merchant reported with dismay. “Can we stop it?”

“No one is thrilled with more nail salons,” said Gerrard, “but property owners have the right to get as much rent as they can, and if we legislate to keep out nail salons, we’d be limiting other personal services such as barber shops, hairdressers and spas [which fall into the same category].”

Merchandise on the street

“Since you’re asking for input ...” said one merchant, “Why are racks of clothing out every day on the sidewalk?”  Gerrard responded that although it was against the town’s code, the town had allowed it both because of flood damage to the store and while the parking lot behind the South Greeley shops was under construction, until Labor Day.  “But they’re still there,” said the merchant, “and a lot of us had flood damage.”

Whose snow is it?

A merchant asked whose responsibility it was to remove snow from hamlet sidewalks in winter.  Gerrard responded that it was not the town’s, but the landlords’.  “Hmmm.  That means us,” murrmurred one merchant.

Gerrard invited merchants to keep up the dialogue with her and Mottel.

Post-meeting

Two days later, asked how he felt the meeting had gone, Mishkin said, “Any opportunity to get the town’s ear and get the kind of reaction we got—telling us, ‘We’ll do naything we can to help you’ —
is good.  It’s too large a group with too varied an agenda, but in the future we could narrow it down, and meet in sub-groups.”

Reached yesterday, Deputy Supervisor Elise Mottel reported that the town would move to remind the merchant displaying clothing racks on the street that his time was up.