BY ART GATTI | The Bleecker Street Italian restaurant, Pesce Pasta, tells us, “Yes, we are checking vaccination status for those dining indoors,” while across the street the iconic pastry shop Pasticceria Rocco sports a sign in its window defiantly stating that it never will.
My conversations with persons answering phones or behind the counter makes it clear that once the law comes into effect requiring establishments with indoor dining to see diners’ proof of vaccines, Rocco’s will not obey that law — this new law that was enacted for the benefit of the community.
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Maybe the owners of Rocco’s don’t subscribe to the same health guidelines that we do? If so, this may be because the family that owns the two businesses, in Manhattan and Brooklyn, are not part of any community we Downtowners recognize, but instead reflect the wrongheadedness vis-à-vis COVID of so many where they live, on Staten Island. We were all witness to the crazy lawlessness that raged through that borough when the earliest COVID measures were taken by government.
Now they look to spread their toxic rebellion to our streets. Well, more than 100 posts on NextDoor.com may convince them otherwise, because 80 percent of those replies condemn the much-loved old establishment for its ridiculous and harmful stance.
O.K., they have time to reconsider, since the enforcement of the proof-of-vaccine requirement won’t start for a couple of weeks. But will they?
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Their Instagram page has become a rallying cry, mustering support from the public they think might support them, and featuring a ragtag collection of less than a half-dozen New York City businesses that will join them in a lawsuit that will restore their “right” — the right, apparently, to not care about public health.
So, even before the law comes into effect, neighbors are talking boycott. The big question is, will Rocco’s finally see the light
Rocco’s is named for its founder, Rocco Generoso, who was named for the saint of the same name. Ironically, St. Rocco was noted for trying to heal victims of the Black Death (the bubonic plague), which he himself caught.
Mary Josephine modern day Joan of Arc
I do not comply. I do not subscribe. I won’t subscribe to your oppressive coercion and your limiting my freedom of choice.
Well said, Lynn! Thank you for your clarity and knowledge shared here! We currently live in a time of total fear and Big Pharma is all about power and control! Follow the money, folks!
Some say that those who do not wish to have to do the jab are all Trump lovers, racists & pro-life…you couldn’t be more wrong!
There are many who have not and do not support Trump who are just wanting to have freedom of choice.
These folks are not responsible for those of you who have chosen to get it! Please don’t judge, project or make others wrong for their choices. We are each responsible for ourselves. It’s time to stop pointing the finger and blaming one another and being in judgment and creating more separation than we already have. It almost seems that this has been the intention all along. I wonder why, and I wonder what it’s going to take to honor, love and respect ourselves and one another?
When it was first approved, the jab was supposed to protect its recipient from getting covid. That has proved incorrect. Then they said it will keep recipients from getting as sick. That has also been proven to be incorrect as the deaths in Ireland have doubled since the jab rollout.
The jab doesn’t do what it was said to do. This should be evident by now to anyone who can still think logically. The Gibraltar covid fiasco illustrates this. Gibraltar, where masks are still required, has the highest jab rate in the world with 100% compliance, as well as the highest outbreak, five times the pre-jab amount. This has also happened in other highly jabbed countries, such as Singapore and Ireland.
There is a difference between corporate science and independent science. If you look up lawsuits against Pfizer, J & J and Moderna, esp Pfizer and J & J, it is not just that there are so many but that they KNEW they were harming people and kept it a secret… it is the obscene amount of profit that was important — not the harm/suffering that they caused. What do you think of the old and new food pyramids, fossil-fuel chemical fertilizers, and weed killers (Roundup)? Thalidomide? Talc baby powder? Go ahead and use these. They were all approved. Do you really believe that these highly profitable industries are not paying off officials? BTW, the FDA is funded by big pharma.
If gov, big pharma, etc. have our best interest at heart, we wouldn’t have poisoned air, water and earth! (Watch the 2019 movie “Dark Waters” with Mark Ruffalo.)
It takes ten years to properly test a vaccine but this new experimental genetic modification was approved very quickly. So either the technology was already developed and waiting for a virus to escape the lab or this is the largest experiment in medical history. Either way, it should be up to the individual whether or not to participate.
This IS political. Never before have we shut down society for a virus. There are preventative AND treatments that work and are being used all over the world (look up “America’s Front Line Doctors” and covid among the Amish.) But, if these were acknowledged the government would not be able to declare the Emergency Powers Act.
Right on, Rocco’s. Thank you for your bravery in speaking truth to power and for your independent, logical thinking in the face of censorship. You are correct, in that this is about freedom in support of being pro-medical choice and consent, pro-religion, pro-family and parental decisions. Are we witnessing the last days of personal liberty?
Obviously, John or Jane Doe is someone who replied before and is not satisfied with sensible responses, so they have resorted to sheer nonsense. ..or JD is just another Trumpian anti-vaxxer with verbal raspberries as a “position.”
Cows, everyone here is a cow, no one has done any science here, clueless cows…. here’s a tip, not all vaccines are they same, the definition has been changed!
a cafe is not an essential business. no one is forced to eat a pastry. if you’re not comfortable do not go inside. this is america, there is something for everyone. There are many cafes in NY that require “the vax” (or 2 or 3, later the 2 xs a year boosters — take your choice).
Laura — LAW is NOT a matter of “choice.” Please wake up.
ART, you can CHOOSE where you have a pastry! Have your coffee & pastry somewhere else if you insist. leave the rest of us alone. interesting that freedom of choice is called a trump thing. he rolled out the vax, made the deal w/big pharm in spite of requesting further investigating (from the gates foundation). he was correct as it needed more study. now you see no matter how many shots you have, you will never be immune. what a crappy vaccine, nothing like the polio, which was effective. go to the other cafe, wear the 3 masks, plastic shields. make sure to pull up that mask while chewing.
laws can be modified.
I love where these guys go! First establish a non-truth — then run with it. So you say my article is an opinionated editorial. Well anyone reading it can see it’s just reporting what IS. But it is also clear that you are the opinionated editorial responder — and it seems you took this opportunity to take shots at all your pet targets. And of course, not a single word of what you wrote here would move a sane person to reconsider self-protection. All you are really saying is that you never, ever have gone with the flow, probably for your entire life. And you want to bring everyone down with you. What you rave about is not “freedom” — it is about your right to be stupid. Well, please continue to do so — but don’t try to sit anywhere near me.
YES, “Arthur” — I AM calling the piece that you wrote “an opinionated editorial” because that IS what it is.
I and others who do not blindly follow those in govt and media who LIE to us every single day of our lives are anything but “stupid.” We don’t call people like YOU “stupid” for allowing yourselves to be terrorized into submission by a govt that doesn’t give a DAMN about any of us, as we respect your choice to believe what you are fed.
The problem here is that people like YOU have ZERO respect for the freedoms of others. Out of your minds with blind FEAR, you creeps then ATTACK those of us who are not afraid.
If you are so afraid, then do us all a favor and STAY INSIDE where you will be “safe.”
People like this believe that freedom means “my stupidity is equal to your facts” — and clearly (at least to me) he is a sore trumploser. Yeah, right, kiddies, everyone is lying to you. Of all the truths you can identify as lies, Chris, you can say nothing whatsoever about the thousands of truths that are true. You deny elections, you deny racism, you deny good government, you deny income disparity, you deny Covid safety measures and you deny climate change. Keep reading the trash you read, but don’t try to traslate all that gobbledygook into an argument. And listen, Rambo, I have had it and I am not afraid of it–my fears are for the innocents that your ignorance affects. So, i’ll look for you at the protests. when the city closes these places–but it won’t be sitting at one of the indoor tables.
To turn Covid protections into a political statement is just plain stupid. Tremendously disappointing that Rocco’s is taking this defiant position on such an important public health issue.
I hate to say never, but probably never ever again will I shop at Rocco’s.
Chris, Art’s piece is a column (first-person, op-ed) but it is reporting on a news story. It’s pretty clear from the piece’s style, tone and content that it is not a straight news article, but an opinion piece, as well. However, the writer clearly did do some reporting to inform the story.
Running an opinionated EDITORIAL as a “news” article makes
The Village Sun look like anything BUT an online “news”paper.
Many people in our fair city seem to have caught a virus created by the state and spread by way of state media (tv, radio, cable, print, social media, etc). As bad as that is, the state’s virus has induced the infected ones in their terrorized state to attempt to spread that virus on to those of us who aren’t sick and who are not fooled by the state’s latest COINTELPRO psy-op that guarantees future generations of docile, obedient, compliant people who dare not question authority or think and choose for themselves.
Those who are infected with the state’s virus, many of whom have fought the good fight against the state in the streets and in courts over the past three decades and who therefore ought to KNOW BETTER, have completely and UNQUESTIONINGLY bonded with and absorbed the LIES they have been fed by the state since 2020.
To those of you who are sick with the state’s virus, PLEASE PLEASE self-quarantine and keep it to yourselves. We do NOT want the indoctrinated and terrorized to become “super spreaders.”
It is my sincere hope that you will recover before it is too late for you.
As for ROCCO’s, I admire and respect them for taking a stand against the latest edict from a lame-duck mayor, who will be GONE in just a few months, who has done so much to harm our city while giving his ALL for real estate vultures and banksters.
Those of you threatening a boycott of ROCCO’s will NOT be missed.
All I can say is you are quite ignorant.
Vaccine mandates have been with us forever and if you ever attended school (???) my guess is you received plenty of them; many of which saved your uninformed life.
They said that this was a matter of principle, standing up for civil liberties and freedom and not a political statement. But then they had a press conference in Brooklyn with Curtis Sliwa. When health inspectors come to see if there are rat droppings or roaches in the basement, or too many flies around the cannoli cream, or if there is a sink where employees can wash their hands, do they preach about civil liberties and freedom then? No, of course not. I’ll miss their cannolis and panettone, and it would be a shame if the last Italian pastry shop in the West Village was shut by the Department of Health because the owner was a gavone, but it might come to that. What a way to end a long tradition.
Can’t believe such a great place can be such a BIG ASSHOLE!
Marty Curls
Sorry, but I’m not dying for a cannoli.
I love and adore Rocco’s pastries; oh Yum Yum Yum. How sad I am to have to boycott them perhaps permanently. I enjoyed a cheesecake for my birthday. It was top-drawer. Perhaps it will be the last tasty treat I enjoy from that establishment. Rocco’s — see the light, your neighbors want to patronize you.
I am old enough to remember when, as preschoolers, my sister and I were forbidden to go to any swimming pool because a crowd of kids might mean *polio* — terrifying. As for those years, moms wouldn’t let kids go to birthday parties, church youth meetings — anything. Now THAT was a restriction on our freedom!
Then, the Salk vaccine was approved and — Wham! — life changed for the better almost overnight. A vaccine got my generation swimming, gathering together…a normal childhood.
My mom’s mom died when mom was three years old and she grew up without. Gram died of the 1918 influenza. (yes, this goes back a ways). Today, this would not happen because of the flu vaccine.
Why the opposition? What in the world is so terrible about getting a little pinprick for the common good. I mean *really.*
WE DO NOT DISCRIMINATE
This just in: COVID doesn’t discriminate either.
Vaccines (and masks) stack the deck. Me? In this game, I’m all in favor of stacking the deck … in my favor.
Serious question: Is Rocco’s similarly casual about other public-health requirements?
This just in (too): The health code isn’t like a restaurant menu. You don’t pick and choose.