Campaign to Save Errol's Bakery in Flatbush Is Heating Up

FLATBUSH, BROOKLYN — A campaign to save Errol's Caribbean Bakery, a Flatbush business that's been run by Jamaican immigrant Errol Miller at 661 Flatbush Ave. for 15 years, is heating up.

Miller told Patch in early December that the building's owner moved to evict him earlier this year after his lease expired. The owner of 661 Flatbush is listed in city documents as 2 Hawthorn Street Associates, LLC., a company online searches reveal to be owned by Michael Rothstein.

According to Miller, after trying to evict him, Hawthorne Street Associates verbally agreed to let the businessman stay, in exchange for bumping his monthly rent up from $3,500 per month to $5,000.

But after that handshake, the company stopped returning his calls, and Miller said. A lease has yet to be signed, leaving Miller to fight his eviction in court.

A message left Wednesday for Rothstein was not immediately returned.

Meanwhile, a group of activists led by anti-gentrification group Equality for Flatbush (E4F) rallied outside the bakery on Dc. 17 in support of Miller.

“Errol’s is the kind of place that gives you an extra patty any time of the night,” one Flatbush resident and protester told Ditmas Park Corner. Forcing Errol's to move, the protester said, would be like “pulling the heart out of the neighborhood.”

E4F is planning another action on Jan. 7. In the meantime, the group is pushing an online petition calling on Rothstein to sign a 10-year lease with Miller at $5,000 per month.

"Flatbush is rapidly losing long-time small & family-owned businesses due to gentrification," the petition reads. "This is why it is so important to support Errol's Bakery and other long-time small businesses in our neighborhood."

As of Wednesday, the petition had been signed by 281 New York City residents.

Pictured at top: Errol's Bakery. Photos by John V. Santore

[Editor's note: an earlier version of this article misspelled Errol Miller's name.]