Via Vanti! Owner Pledges to Fight New Castle on Train Station Lease
The proprietor who thought she had reached an agreement with New Castle officials to operate a restaurant at the Chappaqua train station has vowed to fight the town unless a lease agreement is extended to her.
Chappaqua resident Carla Gambescia, owner of the Italian cafe and restaurant Via Vanti! in Mount Kisco, issued a one-sentence statement Sunday night promising to force a permissive referendum if she is blocked from opening a second location of her establishment at the town-owned station building.
“In the event the lease is not extended to Via Vanti! I have directed my attorneys to file a petition to compel a permissive referendum on the question of the leasing of the station,” Gambescia’s statement read.
The latest development came five days after Supervisor Robert Greenstein confirmed on March 11 that officials would be listening to new proposals. In addition to Gambescia, the board also heard a presentation from Chappaqua residents Peter and Erin Chase, who run their own hospitality and development management company and are responsible for opening and operating restaurants and bars around the world.
At the board’s work session tonight (Tuesday), officials are expected to listen to presentations from two more restaurateurs, Gerry Petraglia, owner of Station Cafe and Grill at the Hawthorne train station, and Leslie Lampert, owner of Cafe of Love in Mount Kisco. A Request for Proposal (RFP) is also scheduled to be issued, which could result in additional possibilities.
Last November, Gambesia received a copy of the lease from the previous town board but an apparent misunderstanding over whether the building’s bathrooms would be open to the public during hours of operation appeared to have scuttled the deal.
Attorney P. Daniel Hollis, who appeared with Gambescia at her presentation last week, said “there is no rational basis” for the town board to re-open the process after last year’s board issued a lease to his client.
He said to force Gambescia to now compete against other proprietors after she had been presented with a lease is unfair because that lease’s terms, including what she was prepared to pay in rent, is now part of the public record.
“There’s been no vote to rescind or not to honor the previous RFP, or to honor the lease,” Hollis said. “If what we’re here for is because there was a misunderstanding as to whether the bathrooms were going to be open all the time or whether or not the rent, which while we’re not going to talk about it anymore we have talked about it before, that’s where the playing field comes in and that’s where the playing field is not level.”
However, Councilman Adam Brodsky said when he saw the copy of last year’s RFP from the previous town board, it clearly stated that the bathrooms must be available for public use. Once Gambescia started to negotiate that point, the town had no choice but to look elsewhere, Brodsky said.
“The town needs to recognize the need of the residents to utilize the bathrooms and we’re weighing the need of the tenant versus the needs of the town,” he said.
Greenstein said that condition was “100 percent a requirement” but acknowledged there was a breakdown in communication.
Gambescia responded that she never saw the RFP and that the bathroom requirement was never previously mentioned to her. She was told of other requirements, such as not to touch the exterior of the 112-year-old building and that the establishment would have to operate on electric rather than gas.
She said she “absolutely” would have agreed to permit the public full access to the bathroom, just as she does in Mount Kisco.
“I have never turned anybody away and for me it seems really ridiculous we’re even talking about this because if it was simply said to me it’s like fine, no biggie,” Gambescia said.
Martin has more than 30 years experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, including a frequent focus on zoning and planning issues. He has been editor-in-chief of The Examiner since its inception in 2007. Read more from Martin’s editor-author bio here. Read Martin’s archived work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/martin-wilbur2007/