Yeah, now we can hear you.
I apologize. Yes.
So it is an 8x8 fully automatic cutting machine.
There is absolutely no noise whatsoever.
And how you would clean it would be by drain, obviously, you know, health department regulated and things.
And you would hose the equipment down.
But as far as noise, there is none of any kind.
Thank you.
Yes, sir.
Two more witnesses.
there's a nicholas caruso we could promote excuse me mr patterson can i just ask one question
i'm sure did mr baldino say that this would be operated only one hour a day uh less than that
no on on the day before the sporting event the the kitchen slicing would be used for one to two
hours for that prior day so how many sandwiches pardon me for how many sandwiches did he say that
no he didn't he just it's just sliced meat and then put back into a bulk container okay
that's like asking max pizza how many slices do you sell
i thought he said that i was wondering how could he know okay um is there mr caruso that we can
Mr. Caruso, state your name and spell for the court reporter, please.
Hello, it's Nicholas Caruso, N-I-C-H-O-L-A-S-C-A-R-U-S-O.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
Hi, Nick.
Just one or two questions.
So were you approached by any persons to sign a petition in opposition to this application?
I was. I was approached by a woman.
OK. And how was the project described to you?
So what was described to me was just basically, you know, she was petitioning for the opposition and she stated that her concerns were that they're, you know, the commissary would bring in some unwanted things as such could be.
She specifically the concerns were, I think, dumpsters being outside and food waste.
um she had some you know general concerns of of potentially having parking spots taken up and
and delivery drivers coming in and out at uh random times of the night and um which all seemed
like you know very credible concerns and then she she proceeded to tell me that the baldino family
and philip stakes had purchased the property and once i found out that i i i actually am a family
friend of the Baldinos. And, you know, I think very highly of them. And I proceeded to tell her
that I wouldn't be able to move forward with the opposition because, you know, at the end of the
day, I wasn't very familiar with the project. I had just found out when she was telling me, but
I was confident in that the people running said establishment, we were in very good hands as far
as the neighborhood and you know i know joseph and his mother and his father and everyone in
his family for a very long time well i wanted to stick to the petition but what was said with the
okay so yeah no the petition generally just said that she was she was concerned that there was
going to be some dumpsters and some some delivery drivers and some things going on
that she just wasn't too fond of but when i had spoken to joseph um after that um you know i came
to find out it was a little bit different than from what was initially pitched. Maybe that it
was just, you know, no commercial selling of any food products, people coming in and out late at
night, and no dumpsters outside. Joe assured me of that. So once I had spoken to him, I felt
pretty comfortable in putting my trust in that family and that establishment.
Thanks, Mr. Grusso. That was the point.
um mr cruso ron one one one thing for mr cruso i don't need to know his address but what block
does he live oh he can have his address sure i'm in the 2300 block of woodstock street
thank you um jody della barbara please
hi jody could you state your name and spell for the court reporter
Hi, Jody, could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Thank you.
Can you hear me now?
Yes, could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
It's J-O-D-Y.
D-E-L-L-A, capital B-A-R-B-A.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
And, Jody, do you live in the area?
I live in the area, but not either of the streets surrounding the property.
But, Jody, why are you here?
In what capacity?
I'm the president of the coordinating RCO, GEAR, Georgia State Area Residence.
And just explain to the board why you're here and what your position is, please.
I'm not.
Um, I'm here because of, um, you know, the, the, uh, the zoning matter and because we're
the coordinating RCO, um, the first meeting didn't go real great because, uh, a lot of
people had concerns about trash, about vermin, about, uh, whether it was going to be a retail
operation.
And, uh, we decided to have another meeting and address everything at the, at the second
meeting it seemed to me by the end of the meeting that everybody was basically in agreement that we
would um have the provisos uh written up by the attorney uh he sent them to me they all look good
every single thing that people were concerned with was addressed i also am very familiar with
philip stakes it's immaculate there we have never had gears been in existence 40 years we've never
had a complaint since they opened about vermin or about dirt or about noise and i i am familiar
with the club but it looks like it's in pretty bad shape and i do know that the um the owner
mr baldino is not going to turn it into a residence so um gear takes the position that
we'd much rather have it as operating maybe 16, 16, 20 times a year, uh, slicing meat and keeping
it clean than putting an after hours bar in there again. Plus, um, I didn't know that there were any
other, um, letters of opposition until last night from, um, which were attached to the other
community groups letter. Uh, if there were any other, um, letters of opposition, I would have
hope that since we're the coordinating rco they would have been given to us but
as of the last meeting it seemed everything was okay okay thank you jody anything else
ron i have no other witnesses questions from the board uh yes mr chairman is the is the adjacent
and property occupied uh it is from my understanding did they sign the petition to support it
um i will i don't have it at the tip of my phone but i'll check your neighbor you're talking about
that yes mr chairman yep uh maybe joseph would know if you have to go through this list here
uh yeah yeah so so so 20 2301 has signed and 2303 has signed and 2382 yeah correct there
is somewhat of a gray area sir um the the mother um signed the property uh signed that she was fine
the next direct next door neighbor but the daughter had some questions and concerns but she
is the legal i believe uh owner of the building and then adjacent to the property um also signed
in favor directly thank you thank you yes sir any other questions from the board
no mr chair questions or comments questions or comments from the virtual audience
chair we have nick murphy okay hi mr murphy could you state your name and spell for the
court reporter please sure it's nicholas murphy n-i-c-o-l-a-s-m-u-r-p-h-y
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
i do yes please proceed uh so my question is on on the document you just showed uh it looked like
uh so my question is on on the document you just showed uh it looked like there were only three
there were only
maybe four signatures on the actual 2300 block in support of your thing do you have any information
on the rest of the block and how they signed that would probably be the one that would be
most affected by this so ron do you want to answer that yeah i believe we have
a substantial amount of signatures from the immediately surrounding neighbors both next
to and behind right but on the actual block that it is i only saw three signatures from the 2300
block well this is an initial submission i think we joseph there was a few more that were obtained
and then there's lambert which is behind i think we have somebody from there so so ron there'll
probably be more test money but the petition the petition with the uh the other rco has quite a
few signatures from the 2300 block yeah well again i i find it okay i'm just saying that's that's on
paper we do have no i understand they're competing petitions yeah so there's the other petition
seems to have quite a few signatures for the 2300 block okay so gear gears in support of it and the
other rco is gerard estates neighbors association correct mr murphy what's your position on this
uh i'm on the 2300 block uh i'm opposed to this i feel like this would be a massive inconvenience
for our neighborhood it's very uh congested already um to to have a business operate there
I'd also like to point out, like, I don't think that there is, you know, either a social club that no one really wanted there or this business.
I think there are opportunities that could be. I just don't think that it's very black and white like that.
I think I think it would be a very large detriment to this neighborhood to have something like that operate on the corner of a very congested area.
OK, thank you. Do you have any questions, Mr. Patterson?
I do not. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Murphy, for calling in. Other comments from the virtual audience?
We have someone with the last name Cole.
Thank you.
Hello, how are you?
Hi, could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
Sure. It's Shayla Cole, and it's spelled S-H-E-L-A-G-H, and last name C-O-L-E.
All right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
yes proceed um so i live at 2301 do you live in miss cole do you live in the area i do i live at
2307 south woodstock so thank you a few doors down and across the street um just just a couple
quick questions before i start what was um i'm sorry um what is uh the mr baldino's lawyer's
name again. I'm so sorry. Patterson. Hi, Mr. Patterson. Which numbers on Woodstock did you
say received? You did get the signatures for? Excuse me, Chair. This is Ms. Dandy, the
supervisor. For everybody that's trying to testify, you can only testify. You're not here
to ask questions. I'm sorry. Okay. All right. I'm going to give the lawyer a chance to say that,
but but go ahead so i so so miss cole so you know i think we've already established they had a few
signatures from the block on the the uh petition they put in and there's another petition that has
several more signatures from the block correct mr patterson the position mr patterson has a wider
area of people who who signed okay um so um i distributed the uh petition um along with um
neighbors on the 2300 block of lambert um i got 26 signatures um from uh woodstock street it was
day weekend when I went around so a lot of people weren't home um I stated everything on the petition
and showed everything that we were all concerned about there was nothing about um anything about
um I'm trying to look over these notes about a retail location I never said anything about that
I was very clear um when I talked to uh Mr. Caruso who was very nice we had a nice chat
i certainly was not um you know forceful he did say he was friends of the baldinos i said oh yeah
he's really nice we just most of the neighbors have opposition to this because it does not
Most of the neighbors have opposition to this because it does not improve our neighborhood.
Ms. Cole, could you state your position on it?
I am against it.
Okay. Thank you very much for calling in. We appreciate it.
I have a question, if you wouldn't mind, Mr. Schumer.
Sure. Go ahead, Mr. Patterson.
Hi, Ms. Cole. When you were distributing the petition, did you state that there would be vermin, congestion, outdoor trash stores, any one of those three or all of them?
Ms. Cole?
Ms. Cole, you have to mute yourself.
sorry i'm back so so on my petition i had a list of concerns and i stated them very clearly
to everybody i spoke to okay and what were the concerns that were on there so um the
it's the vermin and congestion yeah yeah and do you have any basis for that or that's just
your speculation um well uh i don't know how many dumpsters that you've been around in you know i
mean it's very hard to control vermin when there's food waste outside there's also our streets are
extremely packed um there's people going up and down about this i'm asking about this particular
operation you're speculating that this is going to create vermin and congestion i'm not speculating
outdoor trash storage. Anyway, I have no further questions. All right. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Cole. Anyone else in the virtual audience has something different they'd like to
testify? Chair, we have Edward Lavish. Okay. Good afternoon. Mr. Lavish, could you state your name
and spell for the court reporter? Yeah. First name Edward, E-D-W-A-R-D. Last name Lavish. L-A-V is
and Victor I-S-H. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth? I do. Do you live in the area, Mr. Lavish? Yes, directly behind the property. Okay, thank you.
Proceed. Yeah, I'm just calling in support of this operation. I have been in the neighborhood
for quite some time, and I remember that building as what it was in the past, and this is with,
In my opinion, other than a single family home, which unfortunately, I don't know anybody that would really want to turn out into a single family home.
I mean, it is a complete gut. And at this point, I feel this is our best option with the cleanliness and the overall good business practices of Phillips States down the street.
I I'm in support as a very close neighbor within 200 feet of the of the property.
Thank you, Mr. Lavish. Anyone else in the virtual audience?
yes chair we have miss we have someone by the late excuse me someone by the last name of galati
okay could you state your name and spell for the court reporter ma'am valentina v-a-l-a-n-t-i-n-a
all right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i do proceed i am in support of this business philip stakes of i've been in the neighborhood
since a kid. I can remember Phillips Seeks. It's meticulous, always clean. I'm in support of them
having their commissary grounds there. As if you know Phillips and know the business, you know
how clean they are. They even, if anybody's concerned about the vermin or mice or any other
trash, they literally will clean your whole neighborhood and street, not just their business.
and they also donate the extra meat to local animal rescues so I know that that was a concern
for some people about just throwing meat into a dumpster thank you for calling in we appreciate
it thank you is there anyone else in the virtual audience has something else to offer relative to
this here we have Paul Rossi hi hello could you state your name and spell for the court reporter
Yes, my name is Paul Rossi, P-A-U-L-R-O-S-S-I.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Do you live in the area?
I do. I live on the 2500 block of South Colorado Street, and I'm representing the Gerard Estate Neighbors Association Zoning Board.
Okay, could you give us your position on this?
I'm the chairman of the board and the secretary of the RCO.
Okay, that position. I'm sorry. We're in opposition, basically, because in the attendance that we made of the two meetings, I would have to disagree on two major points.