Samantha Balaban Left to right: Johnny Marines, Jose Rodriguez, Enrique Cruz

At age 11, Enrique Cruz worked at his father’s grocery store on East Houston Street. Jose Rodriguez grew up on the same block of Suffolk Street as Mr. Cruz, and now owns a deli on Cherry Street. Johnny Marines, a retired police sergeant, grew up in the Jacob Riis Houses on Avenue D. The trio recently created the Association of Latino Business Owners and Residents, an advocacy group for the neighborhood’s declining Latino population that already counts 50 business owners as members.

“We’ve all come across situations where we feel like we had limited resources,” explained Mr. Marines. “And basically that’s why we formed the association, because we want to give everybody a fair chance.”

Last week, The Local sat down with the association’s founders to talk bodegas, 7-Elevens, and opportunity.

Why did you decide to create the Association of Latino Business Owners and Residents in the East Village and the Lower East Side?

Mr. Cruz: Latino residents have been, I don’t want to say pushed out, but priced out of the area. Business owners, as well, have been priced out of the area. And they have nowhere to go for help. We want to form the association so we can speak with one voice and we can help maintain the Latino residents and business owners that are here and maybe even expand by promoting more opportunities for them. Within that, there are a lot of services that we’re going to provide them.

Mr. Marines:  We feel that, right now, down here on the Lower East Side, there seems to be a lack of unity. I feel that there’s just no respresentation, nowhere for them to turn. We want to use this association to give them a place to turn so that we can all come ogether as one. Like anything else, when you have a larger volume of people involved, you become more powerful.

What services will the association offer to the community?

Mr. Cruz: We want to be able to give them the support that they need. And support in every way. Identifying any storefronts that business owners might want, if they’re looking to do retail. Helping them negotiate the lease, making sure they don’t get screwed on the lease. And them help them put together a package so they can be bankable on a conventional funding level. And make sure that their business plan is strong so they don’t have to close the gates six months later. So that’s my opinion on how I think we need to service our community so that we can maintain or promote the business and residential opportunities for our community.

Mr. Rodriguez: Once they are comfortable with the association, it’ll easier for them to speak Spanish and communicate with us in Spanish.

Mr. Cruz: Once the membership grows, and once the association is on solid footing, we also want to be able to politically have the wherewithal to make sure that issues that negatively affect us can be corrected easier.

As people who grew up in the neighborhood and care a lot about it, what would you say are the big challenges that Latino business owners and residents face today? What are you most concerned about?

Mr. Cruz: A gentleman was talking to a friend of mine who owns a barber shop on Stanton Street. He goes, “The landlady is trying to kick me out of my apartment.” And I’m like, “What happened?” He’s like, “I was helping my mom. I lived here with her for about five years. She was sick, I was living with her and then she passed away and now they want to kick me out of the apartment.” I said, “They can’t kick you out of the apartment, you have succession rights.” He said, “What do you mean?” I said, “Come to the office tomorrow.” I told him what to do. He was probably going to be kicked out of his apartment, and that’s only one example.

Remember, 20 years ago there were 55,000 Latinos, now we’re only 40,000 in the neighborhood. I think that’s a significant amount of our community that has been priced out or they didn’t know their rights and they were pretty much harassed out of their apartments. We want to try to maintain the community here and expand the residential opportunities. And then for the business owner, it’s very hard to do it on your own.

How do you feel about the 7-Eleven issue? Are you going to get involved?

Mr. Cruz: Our primary effort right now is in building our membership. In the near future, we would not mind working hand in hand with the Bodega Association to make sure that big giant corporations that are putting 150 stores in the city don’t come to our community and compete with our local bodega owners who have been there 20 or 30 years. We’re Dominicans, and people when they came here, they started bodegas.

Mr. Rodriguez: A local business owner, he’s going to cater to an individual instead of just following a procedure that was set up by corporate headquarters.

Mr. Marines: I feel like, to me, a local business is somewhere where I feel invited with open arms. It’s warming. I know everybody by their name, they know me by mine. I feel like when I go somwehre like a 7-Eleven, it’s a franchise and you’re a number. That’s just the way I feel about it. That’s my personal opinion.

You mentioned a disturbing trend: Latino business owners and residents have left the neighborhood. Do you think it’s possible to reverse that trend?

Mr. Rodriguez: They’re not leaving, they’re being pushed out.

Mr. Marines: They’re being priced out. The goal is always going to be to try to reverse that. At the very least, we can prevent a percentage of that from happening. Then either way we’re going to serve a positive purpose for Latinos. Our goal is to definitely reverse the numbers.

The association’s next meeting is April 30 at 7 p.m., at the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center.