The Village of Port Washington North addressed an odor issue with a local Indian food factory, finding a remedy with the business owner after a year of residents complaining about the offensive smell and no prior solution despite issuing a violation.
“This board is beyond furious and frustrated,” Port Washington North Mayor Robert Weitzner said of the delay in finding a solution.
His words came during a tense, nearly hour-long, exchange at the Tuesday, June 10, village board of trustees meeting.
At the center of the controversy is Bombay Foods, which manufactures Indian food products out of a factory at 85 Channel Drive.
According to the board, residents of the nearby Wildwood & Soundview Garden Apartments, along with some living along Radcliff Avenue and Soundview Drive, have been complaining of a putrid smell coming from the factory for a year.
Last October, Bombay Foods was issued a violation for the odor, which stated that the company had a month to fix it. Complaints have intensified, and the trustees say that not enough has been done to remedy the issue.
“It went from a distraction and a nuisance,” said Weitzner, “to the point now where several residents are saying that they’re actually fearing for their health based on what they’re inhaling.”
Bombay Foods owner Sanjiv Mody and his legal counsel, Michael Sahn, attended the meeting.
Mody said that smell resulted from the manufacturing process for what was described as a falafel-like food, which the company had made for years. He claimed that an alteration to the building’s exterior changed the direction that exhaust leaves the factory, leading to more people noticing it.
Mody said that Bombay Foods has taken steps over the last year to reduce this effect, but the odor has persisted despite these efforts.
Mody presented the trustees with a possible solution, pledging to install a $100,000 filtration system from commercial ventilation company CaptiveAire to combat the smell. The equipment, known as an air scrubber, uses activated charcoal to catch odor-causing particles before they can escape to the outside.
He promised to purchase the equipment the day after the meeting and estimated that the project would take eight to ten weeks in total.
Board members repeatedly pressed Mody on his unwillingness to pause production of the offending product, a move that he said would be untenable from a business perspective. He eventually offered to restrict production to between Monday and Thursday, a departure from the Monday through Saturday schedule that the factory currently follows.
Trustee Steve Cohen was clear that whatever plan was put into effect, it had better work.
“We care about finding a permanent solution,” he said. “We need 100% [certainty], and we need it guaranteed.”
Bombay Foods operates in its location on a conditional use permit granted by the Village of Port Washington North, which expires this September. Board members stated plainly that a failure to solve the smell problem could jeopardize the permit’s renewal.
For his part, Mody expressed a desire to remedy the issue.
“We have tried to control any odor, and we will continue to do that,” he said. “We’re committed to this.”
