All Brooklyn news
Neighborhood Map
Bay Ridge
  • Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights
Brooklyn Heights
  • Downtown, DUMBO
Carroll Gardens
  • Cobble Hill, Red Hook, Boerum Hill
Fort Greene
  • Clinton Hill, Crown Heights
North Brooklyn
  • Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick
Park Slope
  • Prospect Heights, Windsor Terrace, Greenwood Heights
GO Brooklyn
Dining Guide
Where to GO
Events calendar
Classifieds
The Brooklyn Wire
Not Just Nets
Police Blotter
Perspective
Parenting
Politics
Transit
Podcasts
Brooklyn Cyclones
Special sections
About The Paper
Mobile site
Twitter
Facebook
RSS Feeds

BLACKOUT! Fairway loses power! Produce, shopping trips spoiled

By Mike McLaughlin
for The Brooklyn Paper
The Brooklyn Paper / Tom Callan
Carrot flop: A power outage at Fairway on Thursday caused the spoiling of lots of produce.

Tools

Print this story
Facebook this
Tweet this
Digg this
Del.icio.us

A power outage at Fairway on Wednesday afternoon sent the bustling Red Hook supermarket into pandemonium, causing confusion among shoppers and employees in the darkened aisles.

“I had a shopping cart full of stuff, but just as I was about to check out, the lights went out and they told us all to get out,” said one shopper.

“I never got a chance to go back in and pay, which was really disappointing because boneless sirloin was on sale for $3.99 a pound and I had really loaded up!”

The blackout was limited to the grocery, at the foot of Van Brunt Street, because the store has its own energy supply, rather than buying juice from Con Edison.

It was unclear for how long the store went without electricity, but a spokeswoman for Fairway described the incident as a minor problem that was easily fixed.

But to restore power and avoid spoiling vast amounts of perishable foods, Fairway asked the electric utility for temporary service, a spokeswoman for Con Ed said. She added that the store, which reopened on Thursday, was still drawing electricity from Con Ed.

The temporary loss of power apparently ruined some of the less resilient produce that perhaps could not withstand the brief exposure to summer heat. A Brooklyn Paper photographer saw some shopping carts with discarded fruits and vegetables outside the converted Civil War-era warehouse.

The boneless sirloin sale continues through Aug. 21.

©2009 Community Newspaper Group

←Cyclones: Wright here, right now! Met star takes BP at Keyspan
→Cyclones: The first no-hitter in Cyclone history — and a sweep of the Ironbirds!

Reader Feedback

Basha from Redhook says:
I guess Con Ed is not bad after all. Thank you Con Ed, always there for the people and the city.
Aug. 24, 2009, 8:58 am
mike from park slope says:
hey, did everyone hear george smith running for City Council on this district, district 39 has a new video on NBC

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/politics/George_Smith-_City_Council___39_New_York.html

you should all see it, it tells of a man who had a bad life and who cleaned his act up and worked hard to become someone and now owns a successful business. Now wants to help other people
Sept. 2, 2009, 7:47 pm

Enter your comment below

By submitting this comment, you agree to the following terms:

You agree that you, and not BrooklynPaper.com or its affiliates, are fully responsible for the content that you post. You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening or sexually-oriented material or any material that may violate applicable law; doing so may lead to the removal of your post and to your being permanently banned from posting to the site. You grant to BrooklynPaper.com the royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual and fully sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such content in whole or in part world-wide and to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or later developed.

First name
Last name
Your neighborhood
Email address
Daytime phone

Your letter must be signed and include all of the information requested above. (Only your name and neighborhood are published with the letter.) Letters should be as brief as possible; while they may discuss any topic of interest to our readers, priority will be given to letters that relate to stories covered by The Brooklyn Paper.

Letters will be edited at the sole discretion of the editor, may be published in whole or part in any media, and upon publication become the property of The Brooklyn Paper. The earlier in the week you send your letter, the better.

Wedding Guide

Links