Scoop: Brooklyn Rallies To Save Ice Cream Shop Facing Eviction

PROSPECT LEFFERTS GARDENS, BROOKLYN — A local ice cream shop that's been serving up scoops in Brooklyn for more than 30 years is facing a sudden eviction from a landlord who will not tell the owner why.

Tony Fongyit, of Scoops And Plates on Flatbush Avenue and Fenimore Street, was given until May 31 to pack up his vegan ice creams get out of the storefront that has been the home of his business for 34 years, he said.

"It would hurt me very deeply to leave here," Fongyit told Patch. "It’s a love to me. "

Fongyit received his eviction notice in early May, six months after his lease with building owners Jeremy Properties expired, when a man walked up to his counter and lay the notice in front of him without offering further information, according to Fongyit.

The ice cream parlor owner tried again to contact his landlord and request a new lease, noting he'd never failed to pay his $1,600-a-month rent on time, but without success, Fongyit said.

"Why is it they want me out? I would love to know," Fongyit said. "I don’t know what does he want."

Patch left a voicemail message with a Jeremy Properties manager and had yet to hear back as of publication.

City records show Jeremy Properties bought the six-story mixed-use building for about $14 million in 2015. Fongyit said communication became a problem almost immediately, and even told local organizers Equality For Flatbush he feared for his lease in a 2017 video.

But even as Fongyit prepares to leave the storefront where he has served ice cream and vegan fare to generations of Brooklyn families, locals and housing rights advocates are rallying to save him.

IMPACCT Brooklyn, a community development corporation that supports local businesses, has helped Fongyit organize an online petition that had been signed more than 1,000 times as of Monday and a rally slated for outside the shop this Saturday.

"We’re asking [the landlord] to have compassion," said IMPACCT Brooklyn economic director Dale Charles. "It won’t cost them anything to renew."

But legally there is little else the group can do, said Charles, because commercial businesses are not protected by the same city laws that secure residential tenants' rights and the lease has lapsed.

"This is a Catch-22 that commercial tenants fall in," she said. "I’ve been doing this for 19 years and I’ve seen it too often."

Fongyit has also seen the neighborhood change, it's why he's broken hearted to leave. As a vegan, he's loved providing healthy food to children who have grown up and now bring their own children into his shop.

And while Fongyit wouldn't hazard to guess why the landlord might want him out, he told Patch, "The area is changing."

"I want to be part of it," Fongyit said. "I am part of it."