Neighbors have a beef with two Chinese restaurants in the East Village that brazenly dump their trash – including raw meat and bones in St. Mark’s Square.
“Rats, local birds and seagulls love the party. Their waste usually remains for days. The stench is overwhelming,” fumed Ian Fair, 65, who lives across the street from the stinky situation.
Szechuan Mountain House gets praise for its Kung Pao chicken and CheLi is known for its Longjing shrimp, braised pork belly and smoked fish – but second-floor restaurants get zero stars for their waste disposal.
“This routine has been going on for over a year,” he said, adding that the sidewalk where the garbage is is almost never power-washed or even scrubbed with a thick broom, soap and the water.
“It’s all just wet droppings, leftovers, entrails, whatever they serve. It’s really disgusting. Now summer is here and it smells worse as the heat rises,” he said.
The nasty mess smells so bad another local said it’s impacting the air quality.
“I can’t breathe, it’s too heavy, a dirty smell,” growled Helen Kim, the manager of a nearby tattoo and piercing shop.
“They always try to sneak in and throw trash in front of my stores,” she claimed.
Li Xu, manager of Szechuan Mountain House, said his restaurant pays a private transporter, Metropolitan Recycling, Inc. to pick up trash “every day, seven days a week.”
But “sometimes they just didn’t come” or only picked up some of the trash, said Li, who insisted he sent workers to clean up the trash when the trash bags were opened.
Jen Li, 24, who works at a Japanese creperie under the restaurants, said the rubbish piled up “once or twice a week” and scared off business.
A restaurant worker around the corner blamed garbage collectors who “don’t want to pick up”.
“That makes it very dirty, smelly and disgusting.” said Min Yu, 33.
Since April, the city’s sanitation department has received three 311 complaints for filthy conditions at 23 St. Marks Place and one for illegal dumping at 19 St. Marks Place, officials said.
During the same period, the agency issued five violations at 23 St. Marks Place and three violations at 19 St. Marks Place, department spokesman Vincent Gragnani said.
Businesses are required to rent private washrooms to collect their trash and recyclables and can be hit with fines of $50 to $100 for improper disposal, Gragnani noted.
“It’s disheartening,” Fair said of the meaty question. “I’ve been through enough tough stuff in New York. It feels like the 70s again.”
Metropolitan Recycling, Inc. did not return any messages.
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