12/20/2023 0 Comments Nearest ice cream places near me![]() ![]() “And if we end up having to lose them because of all that they've been through, it would be a real shame.” “These poor people are just trying to run a family-owned business that's been wonderful for this town,” added another. “It is baffling to me this is going on for so long,” added another resident. “In our town, Brooklyn, a fire company can crush a small business with the help of the town.” “The optics are Brooklyn hates small business,” said one resident, who identified himself as a local Realtor during the recorded session. Green, fired back relentlessly at Tanner and the board without much response. Townspeople, ironically meeting at a building named after Jenn’s great-grandfather Clifford B. “If you're all willing to pay two more mills on your taxes, that's something to consider, too. “We do have responsibility to taxpayers in town and, you know, you're talking a million dollars, you're talking a couple mills (in the tax rate),” he said. He bristled at the idea posed by one citizen that the Nemeths were owed as much as $1 million by the town. In one break from constant statements that either he couldn’t respond because the case was in litigation or he couldn’t respond because the public comment portion of the meeting was not a time for debate, First Selectman Austin Tanner made clear the town’s delay tactics were about money, not principle. ![]() Still, the town has steadfastly refused to settle the Nemeths’ claims that they are entitled to recouping hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue lost because of the fire department and town harassment, not to mention legal fees.Ībout two dozen people (plus more on Zoom) attended a Brooklyn Board of Selectmen’s meeting this month to complain about the town’s treatment of the Nemeths and to request a town meeting to resolve the dispute as the selectmen sat stone-faced, rarely even attempting to defend their actions. Firefighter claimed restaurant customers were parking in a fire lane, though the town had no ordinance authorizing fire lanes. Despite Brooklyn filing and then dropping its own suit, the middle-class family had to pay their attorneys tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees to fight the town and then to pursue a counter-claim.Īctions cited by the Nemeths included the town’s revocation of a building permit for the Sütő shortly before it was set to open in 2021 as well as the fire company’s efforts for nearly three months to block parking to the Nemeths’ restaurants shortly after they hosted a drag queen event at The Ice Box. While problems started with the East Brooklyn Fire Department next door, whose members the Nemeths blame for harassing Ice Box customers, disrupting the opening of the adjacent Sütő restaurant and eventually filing a lawsuit (since withdrawn) over a road-access dispute, the Nemeths more recently have been opposed by the town. “We will not be closing for the foreseeable future,” Matt said. What’s more, they are pursuing a new legal stance that they couldn’t yet specify but which would involve litigation. Matt Nemeth initially told me in a phone interview last week that the dream was likely over, leaving them tens of thousands of dollars in debt.īut in a follow-up visit Wednesday to Brooklyn to see the last vestiges of what had been a flourishing business, I heard from the Nemeths that they recently received a new infusion of money from a donor that will allow them to remain open and continue fighting the town. Jenn, whose great grandfather served Brooklyn as first selectman, had a hankering to return to the town where she grew up to raise her own kids while earning a living running the Ice Box, a fabled ice cream business where she had worked as a teenager. The dream for Matt, a former volunteer firefighter, was to run his own business after spending years advising clients with the Connecticut Small Business Development Center. Matt was raised in Ledyard, but Jenn grew up in the rural town where The Ice Box had been a staple of life for three generations. ![]() in Brooklyn, just north of Plainfield, with all the best intentions. Sometimes business dreams come true, but Matt and Jenn Nemeth’s attempt to run two restaurants near a firehouse in the small Connecticut town of Brooklyn turned into a nightmare.Īs I chronicled in a column in May, the Nemeths opened The Ice Box and Sütő restaurants at 17 S. Photo by Lee Howard/The Day Buy Photo Reprints 22, 2023, one day before Thanksgiving, as signs from patrons call attention to the restaurant’s possible closure. A mother and son enjoy ice cream at The Ice Box on Wednesday, Nov. ![]()
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