{"id":1175,"date":"2011-11-01T21:18:31","date_gmt":"2011-11-02T04:18:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/?p=1175"},"modified":"2011-11-01T21:18:31","modified_gmt":"2011-11-02T04:18:31","slug":"cafe-owner-claims-he-laid-off-21-workers-because-of-occupy-wall-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/cafe-owner-claims-he-laid-off-21-workers-because-of-occupy-wall-street\/","title":{"rendered":"Cafe Owner Claims He Laid Off 21 Workers Because of Occupy Wall Street"},"content":{"rendered":"

Milk Street Cafe Owner Sacks 21 Employees As Consequence Of Occupy Wall Street Demonstration<\/h1>\n

\"\"NEW YORK (CBSNewYork)<\/a><\/strong> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c The Occupy Wall Street movement<\/a>, which says its goals include improving the economic lot for 99 percent of Americans<\/a>, may have some explaining to do to some cafe workers now out of a job.<\/p>\n

Mark Epstein, owner of the Milk Street Cafe at 40 Wall Street, just let 21 employees go.<\/p>\n

The reason? The barricades police have set up throughout Wall Street as a consequence of the ongoing demonstration<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In June, he opened the New York branch<\/a> of the Boston shop, which has a 30 year history. Epstein says he leased the space on Wall Street because it was next to a pedestrian plaza \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and his was the only restaurant along that plaza.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The opening was perfect,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Epstein told CBSNewYork.com. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The food was delicious, the customers were happy, and the line was out the door.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Customers kept coming back, Epstein said.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Everything was going in the right direction. Sales continued to grow. We started to build our catering business. Costs were going down. I felt that by October or November we would break even.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Then the Occupy Wall Street movement launched<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I came one Monday morning and I found the exit by the 2 or 3 subway station closed. I saw all these barriers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c barricades \u00e2\u20ac\u201c all up and down my street,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Epstein said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153At first I thought nothing of it, but after a week\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been six or seven weeks now.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Six or seven weeks of marches<\/a> and occasional clashes<\/a>between police and protesters<\/a>. So the barricades have remained in place.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The end result of it is that it completely destroyed the pedestrian traffic on Wall Street. Completely destroyed it,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Epstein said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It is a desolate, police-controlled area.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The cafe has a capacity of 150 seats. At the height of lunch hour Tuesday, Epstein estimated the shop was half full. With those sorts of numbers, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s had to let people go.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We eliminated 21 positions in the company,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Epstein said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153First time in 30 years I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve laid anybody off.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve also cut back their hours at the New York location, closing now at 3 p.m. instead of 9 p.m.<\/p>\n

However, Epstein doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t lay all the blame at the feet of Occupy Wall Street.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think this is an issue of both Occupy Wall Street and the city officials. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s protest and how you react to protest,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Epstein said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If the barriers do not come down, I do not see how we can survive. This has got to become like America again. You have to be free to walk around.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Everybody should understand the consequences of their actions,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<\/p>\n

Epstein says he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s brought his plight to the attention of city officials and police and has been met with empathy. But the barriers are still in place.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Everybody\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s empathetic and they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have lots to say at my eulogy,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to be eulogized. I want the barriers down.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Milk Street Cafe Owner Sacks 21 Employees As Consequence Of Occupy Wall Street Demonstration NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) \u00e2\u20ac\u201c The Occupy Wall Street movement, which says its goals include improving the economic lot for 99 percent…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[1131,9,232],"tags":[1690,1688,1689,651,317,872,801,112],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}