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Gas-Deprived Couple Sues Park Ave Building For Takeout Tab
By
Garth Johnston
Published Apr 2, 2012
Modified Apr 2, 2012
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By
Garth Johnston
Published Apr 2, 2012
Modified Apr 2, 2012
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For many New Yorkers an oven is the place where you store winter clothes, extra aluminum foil and maybe some back issues of The New Yorker you aim to get to later. But some people actually use them (and their stoves), and get very unhappy if they are removed! Also, litigious. Meet Beverly Taki, 66, and her husband Louis Maione, 68, who, the Post reports, are now suing their old Park Avenue co-op board and management company after the gas to their commercial-size, six-burner double oven was inexplicably turned off for nearly ten months. They're looking for $27,000 to make up for the takeout and restaurant meals they say they were forced to consume while they waited.
Despite paying $5,700 a month in maintenance to live in 850 Park Avenue, the couple says that the gas to their apartment was turned off in October 2010 and was not fixed for nearly a year. Which, if you cook a lot (which Taki and Maione say they do) is not so cool! When they weren't using a hot plate to cook they say their lack of gas left them hanging. They had "to forgo their monthly dinner parties and annual holiday gatherings, they said." Further:
Instead of their annual Christmas Eve bash, for which Maione usually creates a fish dinner with lobster sauce that takes eight hours to prepare, the couple was forced to take guests to restaurants, racking up a whopping $1,700 bill instead of the usual $600, according to court papers.
Eventually the issue got so bad the couple decided to sell and move out (helped by the fact that the building refused to install an electric stove while the mysterious gas issue was resolved). They sold the apartment in July of last year for $4.4 million and moved to a $12,400-a-month rental on Central Park South. And when you consider rent like that, what they're asking for from their old building really isn't that bad. Not even two month's rent!
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cooking
gas
manhattan
Park avenue
stove
upper east side
Garth Johnston
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