DumboNYC ponders Grimaldi’s finances after yesterday’s Wall Street Journal story that tourist magnet/pizza place has been served eviction papers reportedly due to being $44,000 in back rent. Not only that, but they owe the state $12,500 in back taxes.
DumboNYC: With the consistent lines and the recent $2 surcharge for the privilege of picking up pizza (a local’s “special”), why Grimaldi’s cannot pay rent and property taxes are a mystery to us.
Update: Today’s Brooklyn Paper quotes Grimaldi’s owner Frank Ciolli as saying he has accrued and will pay the rent, which the landlady, Dorothy Waxman, had refused to accept because “she’s mad that he got a few Department of Sanitation violations earlier this year.” The article also notes that Ciolli has previously been behind in paying state tax, and that in 2008 the store was briefly shut down because of a much larger arrearage, but that the dispute was resolved “within a day”. Some local business people, including Peter Thristino of Pete’s Downtown, are quoted as saying this is Ciolli’s normal way of operating. Because his business generates lots of cash, he likes to let it earn interest as long as possible and pays rent as late as he can.
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