Mexican Eatery In Forest Hills Sued By Landlord For $40K

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS — A small Mexican restaurant in Forest Hills is being sued by its landlord of four years for failing to pay over $40,700 in rent and other fees.

The suit, filed on Wednesday by a real estate entity against Compadres 77, an eatery located at 115-20 Queens Boulevard, claims that the restaurant hasn’t paid the building owner thousands of dollars worth of rent, security deposit installments, water and sewer charges, and late fees — some of which date back to April of last year.

The real estate entity that filed the lawsuit, 111-55 77th Realty LLC, was formed by Aaron and Sanford Sirulnik, records show, of Ditmas Management, a Long Island-based property company that manages dozens of sites in the city.

Aaron Sirulnik, who is chairman of the Rent Stabilization Association — the city’s largest landlord organization that’s recently made headlines for attempting to strike down the state’s eviction moratorium — is listed as the landlord of roughly 40 buildings in New York City,

Among those, 16 of his buildings are in Queens, including 115-20 Queens Boulevard, the 67-unit apartment building where Compadres 77 is the ground floor tenant.

The Mexican restaurant first signed a lease at the building in Dec. 2017, records show, but began having trouble paying rent in April and May of last year — at the height of the pandemic in Queens.

At that point, the landlord applied the restaurant's $13,971.70 security deposit to the cost of rent, on the agreement that Compadres 77 would repay the deposit in six equal installments starting in Sept. 2020, the suit says.

After paying about two installments worth of the deposit, however, the restaurant stopped making payments, and still owes the landlord more than $9,100 worth of the security deposit, records show.

Also, the restaurant’s rent issues returned this summer, according to the suit. Compadres 77 hasn’t paid rent from June through Sept. of this year, amounting to $25,461.19 of additional debt.

The debt further worsened in Aug. and Sept., when the restaurant didn’t pay its landlord about $463 worth of water and sewer charges, records show. Compadres 77 also hasn’t paid roughly $5,770 worth of late fees dating back to April of last year.

All told, the landlord is suing the restaurant for $40,766.35, plus interest and legal fees, records show.

The attorneys representing 111-55 77th Realty LLC and Compadres 77 both did not immediately respond to Patch’s request for comment.

Patch also left note for Aaron Sirulnik at the Rent Stabilization Association but he did not immediately respond.