Question of the Day: What Business Does Glen Cove Need?

John Cocchiola May 23, 2011 at 03:15 pm

It would be really nice if we can just rewind. Get Hilliard's and Asher's Army Navy stores back. Get Cove Record, Chick n Ribs, Eisenstadt's back, some of the old Mom and Pop drug stores where the pharmacist knew your name (Bondy's, Sun Drug, Bell and Halpern, Glinka's place down the village), get some of the Mom and Pop stationary stores (Colony Cards) back, where they saved a Newsday for you, because they knew you'd be there for it and they cared about your business. How about Delis? We had great Delis all over town, there are only one or two left. We lost the Mom and Pop stationary stores to Staples, we lost the Mom and Pop drug stores to CVS, we lost the Mom and Pop delis to Subway and Fast Food. We're losing our identity and becoming a strip mall town. Someone wants to open a restaurant, I say why not? As long as it's not a KFC or a White Castle. We already have McDonald's, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Burger King, Staples, CVS, all we need now is White Castle and Hooters, we might as well live on Hempstead Turnpike. The problem is, the environment is already a harsh one for the small business person, and we should be supporting our own, instead of Ray Kroc and McDonald's.

cc May 23, 2011 at 03:47 pm

Sorry John you are a dreamer. This town was sold out by the politicians the last 25 years. All ou need to do is follow the money, and it is still going on behind closed doors. I am sure our mayor has put the door back on his office.

Phil Battle May 23, 2011 at 03:49 pm

A clothing store where you can buy a pair of jeans or a dress shirt without having to go to the mall.

John Cocchiola May 23, 2011 at 03:51 pm

Looking back, it's just a shame that's all.

LT May 23, 2011 at 07:15 pm

Agree with John that growing up GC had a lot more to offer, even an arts theater, where planned parenthood now stands. I am not an urban planner, but it would seem that something that would serve as an anchor to the community would go a long way to lifting businesses as a whole. The waterfront, if completed, has the potential to do this. Saw firsthand what the Ferry did for Red Bank, NJ, a town not dissimilar from GC. Likewise theater & arts are another great way to drive people to the area. Roslyn has a terrible theater, but it plays high end artsy films that brings a high level crowd, who dine out and spend$$. Owners of GC Movies could make that a high end theater, with plush chairs, gourmet snacks and high end movies, and people would come and make a night of it. Rest often follows.

Brooke D May 24, 2011 at 06:28 am

Thanks Charleen for another thought provoking article. It's great to see people actually contributing ideas as opposed to shooting them down.
While I am a fan of any business is better than none, I believe that there needs to be a plan before more shops just start to pop up. Sure this will take longer to work out but there's a reason that there are so many vacancies that go well beyond the obvious/convenient economic downturn. While Im comparatively new to GC, I have been coming out here long enough to see that there were issues even when the economy was thriving. If it were up to me, and it obviously is not, I believe that there needs to be a phased approach to redeveloping downtown where opening an office is made attractive so that there are people who are near by to support the service based businesses (bars & restaurants) around them. Sadly, opening yet another pizza parlor or Italian Ice parlor is not going to solve a thing. If we had a proper central business district where people worked during the day and sat in restaurants at lunch time or had food delivered then there is a business case for other restaurants to follow. Once there is foot traffic and people are populating sidewalks then stores will see the market and open stores. Im sure that CC will flame me on this but for giggles I'll throw out some ideas on the next post. Rather than ranting, this could be a good exercise for putting actual ideas down. Hopefully someone will read them ...

Brooke D May 24, 2011 at 06:38 am

1. Make the movie theatre a destination per LT's suggestion. Stop trying to compete w/ the multi-plexes and run films and provide an experience that people will want to come to. People will come to see films and then sit in the restaurants (not pizza parlors) along School St.
2. When School St. is closed make the skate boarders go elsewhere. I wont bring my young children down there as all of the boards flying around and yelling at each other ruin the experience. With that, bring in a partner to open a skate-zone by the baseball fields by the water. I am not against skateboarding I just dont want my kids to hear them yelling at one another. 3. Persuade Starbucks to move to the vacant Chinese restaurant. That building is an eyesore and improving the look of that corner would help a great deal and help the flow of traffic through town. 4. Add floors to the space above where the kick-boxing gym was and persuade businesses to move there. There's plenty of parking behind is (that is mostly used for storing Lexus') and get a good restaurant to open on the ground floor. 5. Attach the Piazza to the parking behind the movie theatre and dont make it look like Disney World. It's a business district not a theme park. 6. Open the parking next to the post office to customers and not employees. Make them park in back and let customers have a place to park. That is a beautiful building w/ lots of character but it's effectively useless Comments?

John Cocchiola May 24, 2011 at 01:39 pm

One of the main problems with Glen Cove, Nassau County and New York is the costs of doing business. There was an article in the NY Post today, people are leaving the area in alarming numbers, mostly because business is leaving, and people are following the jobs. NY has the second worst business climate in the country, after California. The way to make our area more vibrant, is to make it more business friendly, which means they need to stop looking at business as an ATM machine. How is someone going to pay the astronomical property taxes selling candy? A businessperson's goal is achievement, it's to make a profit. Competition is a by product, but it's impossible to compete with Government. They make the rules, they take what they want. They're killing opportunity. We can talk about what we need, what we should have, what would be nice, but it's tougher to make it work, and sometimes impossible. The School tax budget just passed, which is going to make it a lot tougher on the local businesspeople. In the meantime, we made special tax deals to bring in larger businesses (the theater, Staples, Sweezy's, etc.), in the hope they'd help support the smaller ones. Did it work? I don't know, does it look like it worked? I've been doing business in this town for a long, long time. I'd seen a lot of changes, and not for the better either. City Planning has done more harm than good, in my opinion. Once upon a time, we had a pretty vibrant downtown.

John Cocchiola May 24, 2011 at 02:21 pm

Brooke, if I may, I'd like to ask you a question. If you were the owner of Starbuck's, how would you be persuaded to move to the Golden Wok building? What would it take? Bear in mind, GC Starbuck's is in an ideal location; they can get a lot of business from the people that work in the area, stores, offices, etc., they get foot traffic, they get business from the people that are a little early for a movie, or want to sit afterward to discuss it. What would it take for the City Planners to persuade you to move across Forest Avenue, to a location that's really only convenient for drivers and much less convenient for foot traffic? If a person is in a car anyway, would they be more inclined to use Dunkin Donuts, a quarter of a mile farther? Starbucks gets foot traffic, they'd lose a good portion of that if they moved, without a doubt. Who would pay the costs of renovation? A free standing, very large building like the Chinese Restaurant must pay very high property taxes, so Starbuck's overhead would be much higher. My point is, in order to survive, business people need to do things in their own interest. How could they possibly be persuaded to pay more, and earn less?

John Cocchiola May 24, 2011 at 03:06 pm

In my opinion, Government shouldn't micromanage anything but their own budgets (they can't even do that). Haven't we had a belly full of plans by our elected leaders? They're mostly empty buildings now. If the climate for business was good, they'd be sprouting up on their own. If the climate isn't good, they either won't, or they'll close their doors. In my opinion, people and businesses aren't chess men that government gets to move around on a board to suit their plans. In the long run, that leads to disaster. Government really doesn't "create" anything, they should just be sure the conditions are good, and fair.

Lynn May 24, 2011 at 03:16 pm

We need a great anchor store such as a Trader Joe's! The nearest TJ's is in Plainview and it's a heck of a schlep. If we had a Trader Joe's it would attract many to our community from our neighboring communities along with their wallets!

John Cocchiola May 24, 2011 at 03:17 pm

"The power to tax is the power to destroy." – John Marshall

Brooke D May 24, 2011 at 03:33 pm

Hey John,
That's a great point & fortunately creating lists on message boards is a whole lot cheaper than relocating businesses. I was just throwing things out there for the sake of igniting a discussion ... which seems to have worked :) Now we need to generate some momentum and get someone to pick up on the ideas! I only throw out Starbucks as an example because it could be a potential draw on that corner but I would bet given a valid business case something that is not closed down or under new management ever couple of years would benefit all downtown commerce. That said, Starbucks is just an idea but given the traffic patterns there on the corner makes it a tricky location ... just ask the multiple restaurants that have tried to thrive there in the past. Perhaps a better idea would simply be a bank w/ drive through ATM's and a smaller coffee shop? Again ... just throwing ideas out :)

John Cocchiola May 24, 2011 at 04:38 pm

You threw it out there Brooke, that's great. I was just asking a question. I've been in business for a long time here in Glen Cove, and I see things from the business person's perspective. To open and run a business takes risk, investment and work, hopefully there will be reward. Someone's business is not a natural resource. There is a primitive attitude in the world, that decides once a business is up and running, everyone and anyone has a right to a portion of what's earned and produced there. They treat someone's life's work as a natural recourse, an oil well, a coal, copper or gold mine to be drawn from. Business is not a natural resource; someone built it, it would not be there if not for someone's dreams, hard work, financial investment and risk. Every municipality takes its pound of flesh, now there's even a business tax to support the LIRR. The burden is getting too heavy, and the business people are opting out, or looking for greener pastures. They've dipped into the well too often, now it's getting to the point where scavengers are cleaning off the corpses. Instead of debating what should be here, we should be talking about creating our own green pastures. Set a few rules, no strip clubs, no warehouse style hardware stores, whatever, and try to create a climate where businesspeople aren't picked clean.

cc May 24, 2011 at 04:46 pm

The first thing is that we need to clean house in city hall. Everything needs to go and get people in there that have no other interest except making this a better place. No major store is going to come to GC, but if we had a destination such as a skating rink similar to Rockefeller Center with boutiques and restaurants around it people would come. In the summer you can have music. Start thinking outside the box.

John Cocchiola May 24, 2011 at 04:56 pm

There are articles in the NY Post and the Wall Street Journal today, talking about why people are leaving NY. The problem is taxes. "New York has the country's 15 highest-taxed counties, including Nassau and Westchester, which rank Nos. 1 and 2." Add that to the fact that the American business tax rate (35%) is the second highest in the world (after Japan). The highest taxed county in the second highest taxed country, and people are scratching their heads wondering why things don't work. That's why.

John Cocchiola May 24, 2011 at 07:15 pm

Just a reminder, that top down city planning rarely works, hair of the dog remedies don't either. There are monuments to city planning in the form of vacant lots and empty storefronts all over town. We don't need more of the same.

John Cocchiola May 25, 2011 at 03:49 am

When a business person makes a mistake, they cut their losses. When government makes a mistake, they somehow think they didn't do it enough, so they double down, and try again. Because they're not playing with their money, they're playing with our money.

John Cocchiola May 25, 2011 at 07:35 am

hair of the dog solutions, great idea.

pocopazzo May 26, 2011 at 04:15 pm

If the Multiplex ran art-house, revival or indie films in one screening room on weekends, it may draw people who could use the nearby restaurants, too. The films they run are mainstream, commerical fare that can easily be seen someplace else.

John Cocchiola May 26, 2011 at 05:02 pm

"commercial" usually means money making. It's really not about what you and I think we'd like, it's about what can make the particular business money. I don't assume to know anything about the movie business, but they're "commercial films" for a reason. I don't choose to listen to Top 40 music, but I recognize there's a market for it. If I owned a music store, I'd be sure to carry the commercially successful music, instead of Jazz, Classical, Alternative or whatever I choose to listen to myself, because I'd make more money selling it. I assume the people running Cineplex Odeon know more about marketing and what sells in their industry than we do. Of course, if we have better ideas, there's nothing stopping us from giving it a shot ourselves. By the way, I'd rather see indy films myself, but the people that go to movies are usually teenagers and would rather see Zombies, explosions and lovesick teenaged vampires.

pocopazzo May 31, 2011 at 01:37 pm

I was suggesting one screen for art-films on a weekend to attract a different demographic, one that may be more likely to patronize the surrounding restaurants. The multiplex can simultaneously entertain the Zombiephiles and kids.

John Cocchiola May 31, 2011 at 02:20 pm

Send a suggestion in, who knows? When I was a kid, there were two movie theaters in town, both had one screen. One was where the CVS is now, on Glen Street (same building), the other was on the other side of McDonald's, where the Radio Shack/Wild Fig strip mall is. One theater had Italian night, there were enough Italian immigrants in town at the time to make it profitable to devote one whole night to Italian films. A few of us would go to the Italian films, because they had no rating and it was a way kids could see some stuff that would otherwise have been off limits (sex on film). There was also a theater in Uniondale that was pretty much devoted to Cult films. It was called the "Uniondale Mini Cinema". Every night of the month had a specified rock and roll type movie for a midnight show, if it was the first of the month, everyone knew Led Zeppelin's "The Song Remains the Same" Madison Square Garden concert film would be playing; the second of the month might have been The Band's "The Last Waltz". I guess they had thirty or thirty one different Rock films, Rocky Horror, The Grateful Dead, Cream, whatever was popular in those days. They'd pack 'em in, but it was another time.

John Cocchiola May 31, 2011 at 02:31 pm

A business needs to concern itself with objective, monetary value and not philosophical value. A kid with four months of guitar lessons can potentially earn more slamming power chords in a punk rock band than someone that's devoted their life mastering the instrument for Classical music. The person that invents a new shade of makeup might have more earning potential than someone that creates an improved microscope. Bruce Willis can earn more than Lawrence Olivier. One screen might work, but I wouldn't bet the ranch. Too many GC High School graduates are better at skateboarding than spelling.

pocopazzo May 31, 2011 at 02:52 pm

Ah, the Uniondale Mini-Cinema! The Italian night must have been great.

John Cocchiola May 31, 2011 at 03:04 pm

If I was running the theater in Glen Cove, I might borrow from the old Italian night and consider devoting one screen to Spanish speaking films.

Bernadette June 6, 2011 at 02:33 pm

I think Glen Cove has enough nail salons. Every time I am excited to see what new store is coming to Glen Cove it ends up being a nail salon. Would love to see a couple of more clothing stores for women.

cc June 25, 2011 at 11:40 am

You are not going to attract a major retailer to a dead end highway, and especially a dead town. Th ecity planners and past mayors (all the Suozzi's) had no clue how to grow a city. They only knew what was good for them. The offices on School St, the parking garages, Avalon Bay, ferry terminals, the Village Square, the waterfront and now the new plaza. Each one of their projects have put another nail in the coffin.

Sean McCalmont November 26, 2012 at 08:39 pm

Well at least they started to renovated the Chinese restaurant

Sean McCalmont November 26, 2012 at 08:40 pm

renovate*