A SCRAPPY HOLEY WAR
Bagel biz vs. dumpster do-gooder
The bagels aren’t all that’s boiling in this Brooklyn neighborhood.
A local attorney is accusing the manager of the Bagel Pub outpost in Crown Heights of purposely sabotaging old bagels — including covering them in chemicals and food scraps — so that the dumpster-diving do-gooder can’t donate the leftovers.
“These are perfectly good bagels from there,” Ted Rao, 47, a Social Security and disabilities lawyer, told The Post recently. “They were baked in the morning — they shouldn’t be thrown out.”
About six months ago, Rao said he started digging in the Bagel Pub garbage, re-bagging salvaged bagels and putting them on park benches in front of the store, or around the neighborhood, like at bus stops, for anyone in need.
But by the end of February, Rao says the once “perfectly good” bagels started getting mixed in with inedible scraps.
“They would be double-bagged with the day’s crock pot of oatmeal poured in there,” he said. “Sometimes there was a chemical smell and they were just unusable.”
Being able to put the bagels out for hungry people was the “best part” of his day, Rao said.
But Chris Kotsis, manager of the Bagel Pub outpost, which opened in 2015, says the old bagels are “garbage” — and he had to respond after getting complaints that Rao’s actions were making a mess.
Kotsis said that Bagel Pub received three tickets from the Department of Sanitation for loose bagels appearing in front of the store, and torn baggies littering the block.
“You’re feeding people garbage,” Kotsis told The Post. “We tried to work with him but he insists that he wants free bagels. We’re not gonna just give it to him. I don’t know what he’s doing with them or if he’s selling them.”
Rao remains hopeful that he and Bagel Pub can reach an agreement. “I’m absolutely willing to make peace with the Bagel Pub,” he said. “But not if Chris stands by the falsehoods that I caused them to get three citations or that he had to fire an employee for helping me, which is patently false.”
Earlier this month, Rao brokered a deal with Lula Bagel, a quaint operation on Nostrand Avenue about a half-mile from Bagel Pub, to donate their leftover bagels to the community fridges.
“I’m not a Marxist — they can do what they want to do,” Rao said about Bagel Pub.
“But short of that, if there is waste, if there is garbage, let’s not just throw it out.”