LAST CHANCE TO NOMINATE FOR DIME BEST OF BROOKLYN: SEE PAGE 24
May 3–9, 2019
Including Brooklyn Courier, Carroll Gardens-Cobble Hill Courier, Brooklyn Heights Courier, & Williamsburg Courier
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MYSTERY MEAT City releases
plans for new
bike lane near
Prospect Park Butchers warn customers not to trust pre-packaged meat amid lockout
BUYER BEWARE: Banished Key Food butcher Freddie Mulé with fl iers claiming the grocery store’s pre-packaged meat is untrustworthy.
Photo by Colin Mixson
BY COLIN MIXSON
Butchers expelled from a Park
Slope Key Food are warning
customers to beware the prepackaged
meat now stocked
by the store’s temporary
workers, saying management
has replaced them with amateurs,
who have no idea when
and where the beef was cut.
“They’re bringing in some
kind of pre-packed meat,”
said Freddie Mulé, a manager
at the Park Slope Key Food’s
meat department. “We’re not
even sure where it came from.
We know nothing about it, but
we know it’s in there.”
Workers at the Fifth Avenue
Key Food’s meat department
have been picketing
the store since April 7, when
management locked them —
and roughly 40 other workers
hailing from stores in Brooklyn
and Long Island — out of
the market’s butchery in retaliation
for a lunchtime rally
that occurred earlier this
month, as union reps negotiate
for better pay and benefi
ts with grocery-store-mogul
Benjamin Levine.
To replace them, owners
brought in temporary, nonunion
workers to staff their
meat departments. In lieu of
butchering the beef on site,
the store is now ordering its
steaks pre-cut, and the union
guys are now handing out fl iers
to customers disparaging
the new product as a mystery,
saying there’s no telling who
sliced it, how it was inspected,
and when it was packaged.
One local man said he
agrees with the banished
butchers, saying he decided
not to shop at the Fifth Avenue
Key Food after trying the
chicken breast, which tasted
weird enough to send him to
a Smith Street butcher for his
meat going forward.
Continued on page 12
BY COLIN MIXSON
City transit reps presented designs
for a protected bike lane
along the Flatbush Avenue
border of Prospect Park at a
closed-doors meeting in Borough
Hall last week.
The two-way bike lane
will be painted onto the western,
southbound side of Flatbush
Avenue between Grand
Army Plaza and Empire Boulevard
where it borders Brooklyn’s
Backyard — opposite the
Brooklyn Botanic Garden —
with both north and southbound
lanes stretching to four
feet wide, according to a PowerPoint
presentation Department
of Transportation provided
community members
at the April 24 meeting, which
was not open to the press.
The bike lanes will be situated
between the sidewalk and
a row of parked cars, which
will offer cyclists protection
from traffi c on the bustling
thoroughfare.
The new bicycling infrastructure
will require axing
a northbound driving lane,
but city transit honchos plan
on suspending parking on
the east-side of Flatbush Avenue
from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. on
weekdays to revive the lost
travel lane during the morning
rush.
Community members in
attendance at the sneak-peek
preview meeting praised the
new bike lane, although some
local transit honchos argued
the cycling paths should be
widened to accommodate future
bike traffi c, which can
only be expected to grow as
Brooklyn becomes a friendlier
place to cyclists.
Continued on page 12
Vol. 39 No. 18 UPDATED EVERY DAY AT BROOKLYNPAPER.COM