The Italian restaurant Vinum on Bay Street in Staten Island will close its doors next Saturday. This was stated by owner and chef, Massimo Felici, who had opened it in 2017 to bring his Tuscan cuisine to the island. Felici explained that the reason for the closure is specifically related to the frequent crime incidents in the neighborhood that lead customers to feel unsafe.
“Drugs are circulating everywhere. We see kids using drugs in the neighborhood every day, and, one of them died a few months ago,” he said. But not only that, Felici related that according to the NYPD, a 32-year-old man was stabbed to death just before 5 p.m. last Wednesday at the corner of Bay and Water Street, just about a five-minute walk from Vinum. “It has become normal for people like me who live in this neighborhood to witness these kinds of situations.”
As Spectrum News reports, last September, the Staten Island District Attorney’s Office arrested 20 people, including a business owner, for running a drug enterprise at a location that was almost across the street from Felici’s restaurant. The Richmond restaurant that was located across Bay Street has also already been closed for two months for the same reasons. Meanwhile, according to NYPD data, crime incidents in the 120th Precinct have decreased by almost 9 percent, compared to last year during the same period. However, Felici reiterated that he has had a hard time filling the tables at Vinum, which for him “is home, it’s Italy, it takes me back to Tuscany.”
Over the summer, the district attorney’s office placed surveillance cameras and some lights throughout the Bay Street corridor, but Felici confided that unfortunately, it was not enough to reassure people about the crime incidents that occurred.
