NORWALK, Conn. – John Deorio’s South Norwalk store is still open but it won’t be for long.
Sassafras, which opened while half of Washington Street was still under reconstruction 29 years ago, is closing within days, a victim of “the evolution of decisions and how they brought us to where we are,” Deorio said.
Deorio had planned to close June 30 but is hanging in for maybe another week, selling glittery Christmas ornaments and colorful Halloween decorations while soft melodic music plays throughout the tourist-oriented store.
You might think he’s closing because of the economy, but Deorio cites two other prime factors – the mix of restaurants to retail stores is way off, he said, and the parking enforcement is too aggressive.
“Parking as a commodity became less of a city-offered amenity and more of a commodity to be exploited, essentially to make money off of,” he said.
With 16 restaurants between the Stroffolino Bridge and the railroad trestle at Washington and Main Streets, there aren’t enough stores to bring people in, he said. Most of those restaurants don’t serve lunch Monday through Thursday, meaning that people shopping can’t grab a bite to eat, making the stores less appealing, he said.
“By virtue of the fact of its longevity down here, at some point a space would open to sell food, and the city would give a variance,” he said. “And before you knew it there was real big (shift) … less retail. That became a little bit of a tipping point.”
The tipping point in that downward spiral happened about 10 years ago, he said.
Many of the surrounding towns have a good mix of retail to restaurants, with municipal lots offering free or reduced fee parking, he said. Not so South Norwalk.
“I feel the place is swarming with meter people,” he said. “They’re always down here. You add to that the new construction that’s going on, different areas of the street here, it’s difficult to run a business. Fifteen, 20 years ago there was a better mix, parking enforcement wasn’t so difficult, the economy was better down here.”
Mona Aboueofatoh, who works at And Co. Inc. just down the street from Sassafras, agreed about the mix of retail to restaurants. But she said the economy is a major problem, as since 2007 it “went down, down, down, and then it gets harder, harder and harder.”
Deorio agreed the economy is a “big drag.”
But life is good at Pelligrini Jewelers, across the street.
“I have no complaints about it,” Larry Pellegrini said. “My business is OK. We’ve been here 62 years. Maybe for his business it’s not conducive. Each business is different.”
Parking is a problem in that it’s non-existent, he said. The lots are full, he said, but he’s optimistic with a parking garage being constructed by Spinnaker Partners at the 20 North Water St. development and the stacked parking planned for 99 Washington St.
“It will relieve a lot of the parking,” he said. The additional residents those projects are expected to bring can’t help but bring more business to South Norwalk, he said.
Parking enforcement? Not an issue, he said.
“I talked to one of the gentlemen with the Parking Authority,” he said. “They walk a pattern. … If there’s nobody in violation they just keep walking. If there are, it takes longer to take the walk. If you’re the one to put the money in the meter and they just happen to be walking around, it looks aggressive. But they could have been around half an hour, 45 minutes ago, and nothing was there. Because I see them walk by.”
Deorio thought parking meter readers were using computers to see which meters were expired, and catching people who were only a few minutes over. Not so, said Pelligrini.
“They don’t notify the guy walking that that meter is overtime, run down and give them a ticket,” he said. “That’s what I was told. That would be too much.”
Deorio said he plans to reopen somewhere else in about a year. He’s looking for an area that has the right mix for his store, a place with tourists, history and maybe a waterfront, like Mystic, Newport, R.I. or Salem, Mass.
He plans to put the Christmas decorations up on Washington Street this winter, one last time.
There is one government agency that he wanted to laud.
“I must speak kudos to Norwalk Redevelopment Agency,” he said. “Really did fine things down here by encouraging land owners, property owners to upgrade their facades with a 50-50 grant. That was a good thing to do; they did the planting. … To a large extent, they made this whole thing happen, but then I guess what happens is it gets away from the powers that be and gets to the private sector. Private sector sometimes has their own vested interest.”
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