Opponents of FreshDirect’s move from Queens to Port Morris will be back in court to take one more shot at keeping the online grocer out of the Bronx through legal action.
Lawyers for South Bronx Unite will ask the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court to reconsider a lower court judge’s decision in May that dismissed the anti-FreshDirect coalition’s lawsuit.
The group is asking supporters for a show of strength at the courthouse in Manhattan, 27 Madison Ave. between 25th and 26th streets, at 2 p.m. on Dec. 5.
South Bronx Unite has denounced the $130 million in subsidies offered to FreshDirect, and contends that the deal to move the company to the Harlem River Yard violates the rail yard’s lease with the state, which calls for trains, not trucks, to use the facility.
When Bronx Supreme Court Justice Mary Brigantti-Hughes threw the case out in the spring, Gavin Kearney, an attorney with the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, which represents residents opposed to FreshDirect, said the judge ruled on technical grounds and failed to take into account the argument that “there are still going to be thousands of trucks and cars” polluting the neighborhood.
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South Bronx Unite! is already being study in graduate school theses as an example of grassroots, media-savvy and morally consistent community organizing. I don’t think FreshDirect ever thought they were gonna be immortalized in that way. But there you have it: don’t mess with the South Bronx! We are winning!
What a terrible deal, Bloomberg must be desperate to get his friend’s nephew, Jason Ackerman, our hard earned tax money. I was an investor in the early 2000’s and Fresh Direct has yet to make a cent of profit, they are nearly bankrupt.
[…] FreshDirect fight goes back to court […]
[…] division of the State Supreme Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision to throw out a lawsuit brought by South Bronx residents that would have blocked FreshDirect from building a new facility on […]