Picketers outside Grand Sichuan Restaurant. (photo: Rob Scher)
“Take a stand against sweatshop restaurants! DON’T PATRONIZE GRAND SICHUAN!” read the flier handed out on St. Marks Place by several ex-employees of the Chinese-food favorite yesterday. They claim they were fired as a result of involvement in a previous lawsuit filed against the restaurant’s owner, Xiao Tu Zhang.
A group of longtime residents of the Bowery will gather on the street in front of their homes Monday to officially announce their public fight against their landlord, who also owns nine other Bowery apartment buildings. A “couple dozen” tenants from adjacent numbers 83 and 85 have come forward to say they’ve been treated unfairly ever since the buildings were acquired by Joseph Betesh, according to Sarah Ahn, volunteer organizer for a tenants’ association that recently formed to address these issues.