Categorized | Editorial

Editorial: Owners Should Be Responisble & Bursting at the Seams

I love a good meal, but even that could turn into a bad experience if you overindulge.  Opening up a new business in town is a good thing as long as it is providing something that is needed in the community.  Not only in the Amboy’s but other communities I have seen stores opening and closing in as little as six months.  Not all these closings are due to the occupants fault but sometimes the owners of the buildings have to take responsibility.

One of my favorite restaurants closed down a little over a year ago.  The tragedy of their closing is that this new restaurant was bringing in people from South River, Metuchen, Edison and other nearby towns to try their cuisine.  This is what Perth Amboy sorely needed.  New businesses to bring money in from residents other than those who resided in the City.

The story behind this restaurant closing is that they were paying the utility bills for the occupants of businesses that were on each side of them.  They were not aware of this until they got shutoff notices from the two utility companies.  The meters that were located in the basement were not properly installed for each individual occupant.  On top of that, they had to close their restaurant for almost two weeks due to flooding that was not their fault.  Instead of the owner of the building sympathizing and apologizing for their mistake, they still insisted that the rent be paid.

When the owners of the building went to correct the meter problem in the basement they made matters worse.  I will not go into the details out of respect for the owners of the out of business restaurant but I would personally not want anyone to go through what they did.  They did eventually reopen for about two weeks and then closed for good.  I ran into them about three months after they closed and wondered what had happened.  They said that even if they took the landlord to court and won the case they were too much in the hole to reopen and just were so disheartened about the experience.   I would say to the City Officials if this had happened to your business would you just sit idly by?

This was not the only business I talked to that had the same problem specifically with the meters, but fortunately for them they did not have the extraordinary circumstances that the closed restaurant experienced.

On another note as I have mentioned in a past editorial, the City Streets must be dealt with before more construction takes place in the City of Perth Amboy.  I suggest that once a month the City Officials should take a walking tour of Perth Amboy.  Let’s start with Watson Ave. which is only two blocks.  Look at all of the sunken soft spots and around where the sewer openings on the curbs are deteriorating that if you were to make a sharp turn close to those holes – you might lose a tire.

If the streets could talk as you are walking on them, they would be saying, “We are on life support!  We are old,  in need of repair and cannot take much more.”  The Census was that was taken in 2010 said that Perth Amboy’s population was just over 50,000 which would give us more assistance from the government.  It think it’s more important that we do not overload our City so much that no matter how much government assistance we are getting it’s getting so crowded it’s like sardines in a can.  Our streets are stressed out, too and it comes to the point when they feel so inundated with traffic (vehicular and pedestrian) that they will cry out “I need to breathe!”

C.M.

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