Vittoria!
Mayor Bloomberg yesterday granted the Feast of San Gennaro the right to continue its full-length festival in September, despite opposition from the local community board and boutique owners who wanted it scaled down.
Bloomberg sided with the 85-year-old Italian festival, allowing it to go on for 11 days along the traditional length of Mulberry Street, from Canal to Houston, despite Community Board 2’s request to cut it off at Kenmare.
The decision was met with despair among the trendy boutique owners of NoLIta — the area north of Little Italy.
“We were really hoping they would change it. Honestly, it smells really bad and it gets messy,” lamented Joanna Liu, the owner of Alibi accessories store on Mulberry Street.
“Our store smelled like smoke the whole time [last year],” Liu said. “The store next to us actually closed the whole time. It affects business so much that there’s almost no point in staying open.”
Petrea Davis, manager of John Fluevog Shoes on Mulberry, complained about the smelly grub.
“There is a sausage and onion booth outside our store every year. The onion skin gets inside our store and we have people eating in our store. It brings to the neighborhood these shady little characters,” Davis said.
Bloomberg ordered the celebration to end 30 minutes earlier on Fridays and Saturdays — at midnight instead of 12:30 a.m. — and to begin 30 minutes later every day — at 11:30 a.m. instead of 11 a.m.
Longtime workers in the neighborhood’s Italian restaurants were thrilled with the mayor’s decision and said the feast is an economic boon for their stores.
Jose Valerio, who works at Buona Notte restaurant on Mulberry, said the festival “is the best time I have in my whole life.”
“I like the festival very much,” he added. “I make a lot of money.”