BxNN Story of the Day: Should Soda Be Off Limits to Food Stamp Recipients?

The Norwood News' 'Be Healthy!" section takes a deeper look at the controversy surrounding the Bloomberg administration's proposal to prohibit the use of Food Stamps for the purchase of soda.

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More than 14 months later, the Valentine's Day murder of Norwood native Michael Lorge remains unsolved. In our narrative, we take you from the events leading up to the early morning execution-style slaying through the investigation and aftermath.

As State Senator Pedro Espada fends off charges by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, two Democratic challengers have thrown their hats in the ring.

A local immigration help center says it is doing its best to educate immigrants on the value of filling out their census forms.

Montefiore Medical Center is vocally joining city and state health officials, unions and advocates, in the  push to implement the so-called "soda tax."

We take a look inside the half-built $3 billion Croton Filtration Plant project in Van Cortlandt Park.

Dozens went on a bike ride in the memory of health advocate Megan Charlop who died in a March bike accident. 

Plus, our high school baseball preview and much more.

Enjoy!

Bronx News Roundup, April 27

Yesterday, President Obama met with the Yankees at the White House, where he singled out a few of them for their community service and charity work.

A Yonkers man who gave police a DNA sample after a drink-driving incident last year has been charged with the long-ago murders of three women, two of whom were from the Bronx.  (Just last month, following another DNA breakthrough, a serial killer already serving time was charged with the 1981 murder of a Bronx woman.) 

On Saturday, a not entirely successful soda buyback event was held at Richard R. Green Middle School in the north Bronx, in support of the proposed "soda tax."  (Earlier this month, Dr. Steven Safyer, president of Montefiore Medical Center, made an impassioned plea for the tax's implementation. Supermarkets and beverage companies, meanwhile, are fighting against it - they claim it would unfairly burden low-income families.) 

BronxWorks (formerly the Citizens Advice Bureau) is holding its annual fundraiser at the Yankee Stadium on Saturday. Bill Aguado, a long-time BronxWorks board member and the former executive director of the Bronx Council on the Arts, is among the honorees.

Speaking of the Bronx Council on the Arts, the group is looking to move to Westchester Square from their current location in Morris Park.

State Senator Marty Golden (R-Brooklyn) has been talking to his Democrat and Republican colleagues about a possible resolution which could strip the scandal-hit Pedro Espada of his majority leader post.

With Espada in trouble, will Community Board 6 still get the $58,000 in discretionary money he's promised them?  (Espada announced the allocation at last month's board meeting.  He also presented ceremonial  checks to Tanima Productions, which runs after-school programs, and Tremont United Methodist Church.)

Marc Sternberg, the former principal of Bronx Lab, a high school on the Evander Childs campus, has landed a high-up job at the Department of Education where he'll be in charge of designing, selecting, and placing new schools.  (Sternberg, by the way, is a huge fan of mayoral control.)

On Thursday night, a community meeting is being held in Mott Haven to help address gun violence in the Bronx. 

A 75-year-old Morrisania man has been missing since last Tuesday. Vincent Durso suffers from early-stage dementia.

Pompeii Lounge, a nightclub on East Tremont Avenue, is a terrible neighbor, say local residents who tell stories of noisy revelers, brawls, and gun fights.
 
Recently, scores of middle school students at Riverdale Country School attempted to survive without their cell phones for two whole days.

Coqui Mexicano, a restaurant in Melrose, is in danger of losing its lease.  Local residents and community groups are doing their upmost to make sure this doesn't happen.  [via BoogieDowner]

Mo Gridder’s famous BBQ trailer is for sale.

Montefiore Leads Fight For Sugary Drinks Tax

On Friday morning, Dr. Steven Safyer (speaking in video), the president of Montefiore Medical Center, made an impassioned plea for the implementation of the sugary drinks tax, a.k.a. the "soda tax."

The fight for and against this proposed state tax -- which health officials say would amount to about a 17% increase in the cost of drinks with a high sugar content (Coke, Pepsi, Snapple, Orange Crush, etc.) -- is being waged on airwaves, in supermarkets and on city streets.

Crain's estimated last week that the beverage industry (against the tax) and the Alliance for a Healthier New York (for the tax) had each spent some $2.9 million on their respective campaigns.

The beverage industry is making the argument that this is an unfair tax that will hit working-class families hardest. But Safyer, who spoke at a press conference at the Children's Hospital at Montefiore, and the alliance say it will only affect families who continue to make the unhealthy choice of buying sugar-heavy drinks that are a primary culprit in the the Bronx's (and the state's) growing obesity and diabetes "epidemic."

Health care officials say this tax is an easy win-win. It will cut consumption of sugary drinks by an estimated 10% (which obviously isn't good news for the beverage companies) which, in turn, will prevent 150,000 people from becoming obese, according to Deputy Health Department Commissioner Dr. Andrew Goodman, who also participated in the press conference.

In addition, while it's unclear exactly where the tax money will go, Ken Raske, president and CEO of the Greater New York Hospital Association, said the funding would go back into the state's struggling hospitals. He pointed to the recent shuttering of lower Manhattan's St. Vincent's Hospital as a reminder of what can happen when a facility is "chronically" underfunded.

Montefiore kicked off the press conference with a health fair where they showed some of the effects of drinking soda. Doctors there compared the proposed tax to the taxes on cigarettes, saying the taxes had proved effective. They compared the obesity epidemic to tuberculosis outbreaks and the spread of AIDS/HIV in the 1980s.

This fight, inevitably, will end up in the hands of the state legislature. So far, Bronx senators Jeff Klein and Ruth Hassell-Thompson have stated their opposition to the tax, while Assemblyman Jeff Dinowitz says he's for it. If you know of others who have stated their position, let us know.

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Tenants at a deteriorating and code violation-wracked building on Bainbridge Avenue (North Fordham) is enlisting the help of local leaders and have filed a lawsuit to get their landlord, the infamous Frank Palazzolo, removed and replaced.

The Mosholu Post Office on Jerome Avenue in Norwood suddenly closed to the dismay and confusion of local residents and workers. It will be closed to repair "structural damage" for an estimated six months.

Mind-Builders, a Bronx arts education nonprofit organization, has moved into an old convent at St. Brendan's Church while its space in Wakefield is being renovated.

Local Bangledeshis celebrated their home country's independence at Holy Nativity Church in Norwood. 

Speaking of which, Holy Nativity is fully restored after sustaining damage in the Halloween fire that destroyed 10 area businesses.

Edgar Santana, known as Augie, the owner of Pet Paradise is still going strong after 37 years in business.

Plus, Bronx community boards fight budget cuts . . . Students and activists fight for new schools at the Armory annex buildings . . . an editorial on the newest Armory Task Force . . . residents talk about the proposed sugar drinks tax . . . and more.

Bronx News Roundup, April 6

A Massachusetts man will spend the rest of his life in prison after being convicted of having his teenage girlfriend murdered. Carlos Cruz, 40, paid his cousin $700 to shot dead Chelsea Frazier on a quiet street in Castle Hill last spring, and make it look like a robbery.

A 65-year-old Bronx man is dead because a surgical sponge was left inside him during open-heart surgery at Montefiore Medical Center, his children charge in a lawsuit.

Daily News columnist Patrice O'Shaughnessy says Gov. Paterson's proposed soda tax "isn't fair" because it would hurt low-income families.  Last Wednesday, New Yorker Against Unfair Taxes, a coalition of businesses opposed to the tax, held a protest and petition-signing at a Fordham supermarket. In response, State Health Commissioner Richard Daines expressed shock that the "beverage lobby has the audacity to bring their fight against the sugary beverage tax to a borough that has the city's highest obesity rate and highest rates of sugar beverage consumption." Daines believes the tax would improve Bronxites' health.

A 27-year-old mother has been arrested after allegedly leaving her three young children unsupervised inside the family's Westchester Square apartment.

Fair-beating is still common-place on the Bx12 Select Bus Service, which runs along Fordham Road and Pelham Parkway.

Four members of a violent drug-trafficking gang, the so-called DeKalb Avenue Crew, have been found guilty of murder, robbery, racketeering, and other charges.

Robert Salerno, the Bronx cop badly injured in a gun-fight on March 22, has been released from hospital. He will spend the next two months or so at a physical-rehabilitation center in White Plains.

A look at the challengers Assembly members Carl Heastie, Naomi Rivers, Nelson Castro, and Peter Rivera, may face in the fall.

BoogieDowner wonders: Has Assemblywoman Vanessa Gibson been taking her parking cues from Pedro Espada? Yesterday, a reader of theirs snapped photos of Gibson's car parked in a bike lane on the Grand Concourse. In the window was a police placard. 

So far, Hunts Point, Morrisania, West Farms, and Wakefield are among the neighborhoods with poor Census participation rates. You can see how your neighborhood's doing here.

A look at how Puerto Ricans came to dominate Bronx politics.

In Van Cortlandt Park, work is ongoing to clear up hundreds of fallen trees that came crashing down in last month's storm.

At Fordham Supermarket, Group Protests 'Soda Tax'

The scene at Pioneer Supermarket on Ryer Avenue last Wednesday (Photo courtesy of New Yorkers Against Unfair Taxes)

New Yorkers Against Unfair Taxes, a coalition of supermarkets and other businesses with ties to the beverage industry, has been railing against Gov. David Paterson's plans for an 18-percent sales tax on sodas and other sugary drinks.

On Wednesday, the group held a protest and petition-signing session (pictured above) at the Pioneer Supermarket on Ryer Avenue near East 187th Street. The store's owner, David Corona, has appeared in a recent television commercial criticizing the tax. In it, he says: "They talk about a penny here, a penny there, but you know what, in this type of community it all adds up."

Bronx politicians to have taken a stand on the issue include Assembly members Ruth Hassell-Thompson and Jeff Klein, who are firmly on the side of the beverage industry. (Klein has received $36,000 in campaign contributions from drink companies and related groups since December 2008, the Daily News reported last month.) Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowtiz, meanwhile, supports a tax on sugary drinks and foods.

Those in favor of the soda tax say it would plug a hole in the state budget and, at the same time, combat obesity and diabetes.