More clouds over Adams and his pals.They don't deserve the benefit of the doubt (re scofflaw Woodland or "people who have stumbled")

There's some important news in two recent articles on Mayor Eric Adams and his dubious pals.

Let's start with Politico's 8/6/22 report, How Adams' pals — and a favorite dining spot — link him to one of the state's top tax delinquents, then go to the front-page New York Times coverage yesterday, Eric Adams After Dark: A Private Table and Tarnished Friends.

Notable is how Politico unearthed evidence of how the companion-or is it wife?--of a felon is (maybe) being used to evade state liquor laws. And that felon, Robert Petrosyants, is a friend of Mayor Eric Adams and the twin of Zhan (Johnny) Petrosyants, an even closer friend of the mayor's.

Also notable: how the Times found Adams spent so much time at the twins' Osteria La Baia--at least 14 evenings in June--with no evidence of who, or how, he paid for his meals, which runs afoul of guidance--if not an explicit ban--from the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board. (And, oh, the "vegan" mayor orders branzino.)

But both pieces are weak, however, in giving both the Petrosyants, and Adams, the benefit of the doubt.

Sure, it's true that people's pasts should not hang over their heads.

And, sure, it's fine for Adams to "talk with people who have stumbled and fell,” part of "a city made up of perfectly imperfect people," as he claimed in his blanket dismissal of concerns about his associations with those who have a checkered past.

Continued sketchiness

But that rhetoric hits a roadblock when "perfectly imperfect people" continue sketchy behavior. That doesn't deserve deference. Nor do Adams's excuses.

As Joe Anuta reported in Politico:

An extensive review of previous reports and public records has found a network of restaurants — including the haute Osteria La Baia, where the mayor can often be found holding court — owned by either tax-tardy Brooklyn attorney Akiva Ofshtein or a New York restaurateur named Marianna Shahmuradyan. Tying them together are twin brothers Robert and Zhan “Johnny” Petrosyants — two of the mayor’s close pals.

Ofshtein has hired the Petrosyants brothers to manage eateries that ran up significant tax debt. And Shahmuradyan, who owns La Baia, is romantically linked with Robert Petrosyants.

But the summary of the Petroysants' post-conviction transgressions--"have since been involved in culinary ventures that deprived the government of tax revenue," given Ofshtein's $1.3 million-plus tax delinquency--skate over some important evidence.

From the article:

In 2019, a popular Park Slope brunch spot called Woodland became a flashpoint between several politicians who complained it was too rowdy, and Adams, who called critics racist because the restaurant’s clientele was largely Black.

Back then, Brooklyn lawyer Frank Carone — who would go on to become Adams’ chief of staff in City Hall — represented the restaurant in a related dispute with the State Liquor Authority.

Heck, people who went there "complained it was too rowdy" and Adams' calling critics racist came in an interview with the notorious Stephen Witt. 

The evidence, as I reported, was a mismanaged bar that essentially forced patrons to use the street as a lavatory. 

Owners, or managers?

Politico quotes Ofshtein--who doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt, does he?--as saying Zhan Petrosyants managed Woodland, while Robert Petrosyants managed Forno Rosso.

However, as Politico notes, other information suggests that the twins also have held ownership stakes, which would've invalidated the restaurants' liquor licenses.

Evidence cited includes a DNAinfo report that Robert Petrosyants listed himself as the owner of Woodland in a $1,000 donation to Adams' borough president campaign, before the conviction; a 2016 lawsuit alleging both had financial interests in Forno Rosso; and my citation of a 2018 page on the brothers' American Standard Hospitality Group describing them as owners.

Omitted: as I wrote, a Yelp screenshot from 2017 (above right) showed Robert describing himself as an owner.

What about La Baia?

As Politico notes, American Standard Hospitality Group, has listed Osteria La Baia--where Adams has both eaten and held a fundraiser--among the handful of restaurants it’s managed.

According to its liquor license application, La Baia is solely owned by Marianna Shahmuradyan, who is--take your pick--either the wife of Robert Petrosyants or just the woman who bore his children.

She's listed herself as unmarried, while Robert, in a different document, called her his spouse. Later, Shahmuradyan said they lived together but aren't married.

So, can anything they say be trusted? And should Adams give them deference?

The Times investigates

The Times piece contains this subheading:

New York’s mayor vowed to boost nightlife establishments in every corner of the city. But again and again, he returns to the same spot, run by friends with troubled pasts.

But it's not just their criminal pasts that are "troubled." It's their post-criminal pasts. From the article:

The 40-year-old twin brothers, who had previously operated businesses in Brooklyn, launched their Manhattan restaurant just weeks after the mayor was elected. Mr. Adams’s frequent appearances at and promotion of the restaurant have boosted its reputation in nightlife columns and social media.

That raises ethical questions because of the seeming favoritism, though of course Adams' paid spokesperson said he goes lots of places. 

Also note:

Waiters refer to Robert and Zhan Petrosyants as the owners, though they are both prohibited from holding the restaurant’s liquor license because of felony convictions. Instead, Marianna Shahmuradyan — with whom Robert has several children — is on the license, according to New York State Liquor Authority records.

Do note that, as Sally Goldenberg of Politico tweeted, "no one who reads the print copy of this story will know that the mayor's time at La Baia and his relationship w/ the Petrosyants was broken in Feb by
@politicony, which did the same thing - albeit with many fewer resources."

About Woodland

From the Times:

At the time of their arrests, the brothers ran a restaurant in Brooklyn, Woodland, at which Mr. Adams was also something of a regular.

Mr. Adams, then Brooklyn borough president, had held fund-raisers and parties for staff at the restaurant on Flatbush Avenue in the bustling mix of commercial and residential properties near Barclays Center. But complaints about excessive noise at Woodland mounted and eventually led Mr. Adams to convene a neighborhood meeting in the fall of 2016.

There, he urged those assembled to give Woodland a fair chance, according to Regina Cahill, the president of the North Flatbush Avenue Business Improvement District, who attended the meeting.

Mr. Adams never noted his relationship with the Petrosyants brothers. The restaurant was permitted to keep operating.

“He never disclosed that he had more than a casual patron relationship with them,” said Ms. Cahill, who learned of it some years later, she added. “We were surprised.” A few years later, Woodland lost its liquor license and closed after further complaints from neighbors. Its owner, a business partner of the Petrosyants brothers, said at the time that the complaints were grounded in racism directed at the restaurant’s largely Black clientele.

That's too gentle.

Important piece, but way too generous to give Woodland's operator/owner the last word on whether racism (as Adams also alleged) was cause of neighbors' complaints, or rather scofflaw operations & half-hour wait for the bathroomshttps://t.co/ZLgpL2AJkqhttps://t.co/Sel4My4KhY https://t.co/ygGDlWfVfL

— Norman Oder (@AYReport) August 22, 2022

After all, the Times found additional reasons to be skeptical:

The Petrosyants brothers have worked together on several other restaurants, leaving a trail of lawsuits and unpaid bills in their wake. The landlords of Forno Rosso, an Italian restaurant in Downtown Brooklyn at which Robert was a manager and guarantor on the lease, last year sued him and an associate in an effort to recover what they say is more than $500,000 in rent and other costs that went unpaid since April 2020 while the restaurant continued operating.

Johnny Petrosyants said by email that the landlord rejected good-faith efforts to settle the unpaid bills; Scott Loffredo, a lawyer for the landlord, said no such efforts were made.

More reasons for doubt

The mayor also hangs out at Zero Bond, a private members’ club in NoHo. The Times noted that the mayor's spokesman didn't "did not respond to a question about who hosts Mr. Adams at the club."

Also this tidbit:

But on other occasions, the mayor’s outings beyond La Baia or Zero Bond appear to be steered by the same small group with whom he often spends his evenings.

In June, the mayor attended a private dinner sponsored by the Florida-based luxury magazine Haute Living at a Madison Avenue restaurant.

Beside him, once again, was Johnny Petrosyants — a longtime friend of one of the magazine’s principals, Kamal Hotchandani.