Good morning. It’s Monday. Today we’ll look bodega cats and a petition that proposes a way out of their Catch-22.
Mia and Silver and Gracie are captivating, charming and cute — cuddly, even. They are a very New York solution to a problem.
And, like the other cats in delis and bodegas across the city, they pose a different problem.
Bodega and deli cats don’t just loll the day away, napping alongside the candy at the cash register. They do a job, patrolling for “the problem all New Yorkers have,” as Maria Alavi delicately put it. Alavi, the owner of the Bean Gourmet Coffee deli at 320 West 14th Street, did not say the word “mice.” Or, worse, “rats.”
But deli and bodega owners say that their cats, prey- and protein-craving creatures that they are, make mice vanish. Problem solved.
That problem, anyway. State law says animals other than service animals cannot be in places where food and beverages are sold. So Mia and Silver and Gracie could be written up by an inspector.
Dan Rimada, who started the Instagram account @bodegacatsofnewyork during the pandemic, calls this a “New York contradiction.”
“The owners face fines for having rodents and for having cats,” he said.
He posted a petition online a few weeks ago for the cats to be legitimized. He proposed a system of certification for bodega owners “who meet clear, humane standards,” including regular veterinary checkups, spaying or neutering, proper feeding and “safe ‘cat zones.’” More than 9,200 people have signed it.
For certification, an owner would have to provide documentation from a veterinarian that a cat has had the appropriate shots and “that you’re actually caring for the cat, that the cat has a place to sleep and is not locked in basements all day long,” Rimada said.
Lola, the cat at Alavi’s deli, wasn’t locked in the basement but was somewhere down there. The employee who led the way down the stairs could not find her.
Mia, at the Fresh Food Farm deli at 1310 Second Avenue, was stretched out on a box of umbrellas. There was a toy mouse at her feet but no live ones in the store, Goldy Gujja said from behind the counter.
He would not pick up Mia. “I don’t like cats,” she said.
But Mia is popular with customers. “All the neighborhood dogs are her besties,” said Carol Sokol, whose West Highland terrier, Emmy, often visits Mia “several times a day.”
Rimada aimed his petition at several City Council members, but he may be, well, barking up the wrong tree. Cats in bodegas and delis are not regulated by the city. The city’s Health and Mental Hygiene Department “inspects ‘food service establishments,’ which we colloquially call ‘restaurants,’” an agency spokeswoman said. But the state’s Agriculture and Markets Department “inspects retail food establishments, or ‘markets.’”
Then, using a shortened form of the state agency’s name, the spokeswoman said that “a ‘bodega’ is not a technical term but is typically a market and under Ag and Markets.”
Echoing that, Julie Menin, a City Council member who is a former commissioner of the Department of Consumer Affairs, said that “the city has no jurisdiction on this issue.” She also said she had not seen “an army of inspectors” from the state agriculture agency.
But Irene Donnelly, behind the counter at Myers of Keswick, at 634 Hudson Street, has. She called fines from state inspectors “money well spent” as she defended bodega cats.
“You can’t have it both ways,” Donnelly said. “The rodent issue is so prevalent. The cat solves that. Why is that a problem?”
Gracie, the cat in residence, sat up. She rolled over. She scarfed down a treat that Donnelly gave her.
She remained a model of nonchalance as Donnelly said that Gracie had come with a hard act to follow. The store’s previous cat, Molly, was trapped for two weeks between the store and the building next door soon after she arrived in 2006. Some construction workers volunteered to break through a wall and pulled Molly out. She lived another 15 years. Gracie arrived in January 2022, a month after Molly’s death.
Silver, the cat at York Deli, at 1492 York Avenue, has also been seen by inspectors — and on TikTok, which has made the manager, Angel Lea Gustavo Mejic, jealous. “He’s more famous than I am,” he said.
Inspectors making the rounds sometimes ask managers if they have a cat in the deli. “I answer honestly: ‘I do,’” he said. One inspector told him, he recalled, “I’d rather you have a cat than you have mice.”
When Silver arrived a year and a half ago, he apparently did not understand that his job was to keep the deli mouse-free. Silver sometimes went outside and caught a mouse. Then, with the creature still alive and wriggling in his mouth, he would return to the deli and drop it on the floor.
“People thought we had mice,” Gustavo said, “but he brought the mice in.”
Weather
Expect a rainy, cloudy day with temperatures reaching into the high 50s. In the evening, the chance of showers decreases to 30 percent, and the temperature will dip to around 39.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
In effect until March 31-April 1 for Idul-Fitr (Eid al-Fitr).
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For the birds
Dear Diary:
It was a bright clear morning in Manhattan. I was visiting from Arkansas, helping my college daughter settle into a summer program. While she was in class, I explored the city.
Wandering through Bryant Park, I spied a crowd of people with their phones out and all pointed in one direction. Some of them were cradling large cameras with long lenses.
I hurried over, eager for a celebrity sighting. The phones and lenses were angled downward at a cluster of bushes near the carousel.
The crowd spoke in hushed tones. I was confused.
“What’s going on?” I whispered to a particularly intense young man with a huge camera. His face was aglow.
“It’s amazing!” he said. “The mourning warbler. We don’t usually see him here!”
He lowered his camera, eager to show me shots of the small, brightly colored songbird. He explained its migratory pattern, its unique features and our stellar luck at being able to witness him.
I nodded gratefully, tickled at his joyous rapture over this avian miracle. He returned to his focus, kneeling for more shots.
A woman joined us.
“What is all this business?” she asked, her Australian accent evident.
“It’s the mourning warbler!” I said, having caught the enthusiasm. “It’s amazing!”
— Shelley Russell
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.