Lynn business owners displeased with snow job

LYNN – Several business owners in Lynn declined to comment when asked how they felt the Lynn DPW did clearing the streets after the blizzard on Monday, but the ones who did want to talk didn’t seem too pleased.”The streets are awful,” said Dotty Christopoulos, co-owner of Charlie’s Junction Deli on Exchange Street.She says although her business was closed on Monday due to the declared state of emergency, it has been hurt by the poor plowing since.”A lot of customers who drive here have no place to park. I’ve heard from walking customers that it’s hard to get here too because the sidewalks are dangerous.”She says Exchange Street was blocked off early Wednesday morning so trucks could plow.”They blocked the street off to do a job that should have already been done. We lost business because of that,” says Christopoulos.She adds that she was shoveling the sidewalks in front of her business on Tuesday so customers would feel safer.”As a business owner, you want your customers to be happy. We did our part. We cleared our sidewalks to make sure it’s passable for customers. They (the DPW) need to do their part.”She feels the DPW could have worked harder clearing streets and compares the city’s streets to her hometown of Peabody.”I live in Peabody and you can tell right away when you cross the border into Lynn,” she said. “It’s not like Peabody got more snow. It’s just that the plowing jobs on the streets around here are comparably much worse.”Annie An, co-owner of Campus Coffee Shop on Exchange Street, agreed.”This street is still very dangerous,” said An.She says the two-lane street is now closer to a one-way. “The snow piles are in the way of many parking spots so people are parked way out in the street. It makes the street thinner.”But, she says drivers have been dealing with the limitations well.”Drivers are going very slow, much slower than before the storm,” said An. “They don’t want to risk sliding into each other or running into snow piles.”Angel Gonzalez, owner of Las Tres Virtudes retail store on Central Avenue in Lynn, says the sidewalk in front of his store is dangerous because of the snow and ice.”I think they need to focus on doing a better job clearing the sidewalks,” said Gonzalez. “They should make them wider and put more salt down.”He says he is also concerned about snow and ice falling from the top of his building and hitting customers.”I actually got hit with icicles when I was coming into work yesterday,” said Gonzalez. “That makes me worry about customers getting hit.”He says he has no complaints about the parking situation near his business.”I haven’t heard from customers that they are having trouble parking. We have employee parking across the street and the lot is pretty clear so I can’t complain about that.”Phil Clifford, an employee at Richard Covert TV and Stereo in Wyoma Square, says he is more concerned about the street he lives on rather than the area around the square where he works.”This is a main road (Wyoma Square) so I think it was a top priority (to get it cleared),” said Clifford. “It doesn’t look too bad.”But he adds that the sidewalk in front of the business was cleared Tuesday and when plows came back Wednesday morning, they pushed snow onto where the path had been cleared for pedestrians.He adds that it was then up to him to shovel in front of the business.”They ruined the job they had already done. It needs to be done right the first time,” said Clifford.He adds that the side streets around where he lives in Lynn are “awful.””The street I live on is a big hill and the trucks plowed the snow down the hill into one of my neighbor’s yards,” said Clifford. “It’s awful that a so-called clean-up causes more work for residents. They should have plowed up the hill and out of the way of people’s driveways.”Omar Guerrero, owner of Omar and Oscar Jeweler’s in Central Square in Lynn, says for the size of the storm, he thinks the DPW did the best job possible.”It was a big storm and I think (the DPW) did