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Businesses Near Barclays Center 'Disappointed' DNC Skipped Brooklyn

 Businesses around the Barclays Center are "disappointed" by the DNC's decision to host the 2016 presidential convention in Philadelphia, not Brooklyn.
Businesses around the Barclays Center are "disappointed" by the DNC's decision to host the 2016 presidential convention in Philadelphia, not Brooklyn.
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DNAinfo/Rachel Holliday Smith

BROOKLYN — Business owners around the Barclays Center were "disappointed" that Brooklyn would not host the Democratic National Convention in 2016, passed over Thursday in favor of Philadelphia.

“What did they see there that they didn’t see in Brooklyn? Brooklyn is the best place,” said Ahmed Khatari, owner of the Dubai Mini Mart located directly behind the arena on Sixth Avenue and Dean Street.

Khatari was one of dozens of business owners in the Barclays Center’s immediate neighborhood who signed an open letter to the DNC in late January urging them to bring the convention to Brooklyn, which he said would be “great for the neighborhood”  and “would bring a lot of business.”

Mark Caserta of the Park Slope Fifth Avenue Business Improvement District also signed that letter and said he is “disappointed” by the decision, though he said he doesn’t think those supporting the city’s bid could have done any more in their lobbying effort.

“There was always a feeling that we may not get it for whatever reason — there were political reasons  and that’s sort of beyond what we can deal with,” he said.

“I would have loved to have a lot of people shopping and eating and drinking on Fifth Avenue. So, we’re going to miss out on it. But, you know, it’s their decision, it’s their process and we move on.”

Rebecca Fitting, co-owner of the Greenlight Bookstore in Fort Greene, said “as a business owner,” she very much wanted the DNC in Brooklyn, saying “it would have been great to have it around the corner.” But personally, her feelings were more complicated.

“We’re so polarized in this country about the East Coast, West Coast and the perception of the middle of the country. I felt like [hosting the DNC in Brooklyn] was going to feel exclusionary to the rest of the country and I felt like it should be in a different city.”

Michael Pintchik, whose family has owned Pintchik Hardware on Flatbush Avenue near the Barclays Center for more than 100 years, said “quite frankly,” there was a chance the DNC would have hurt his business, but he supported the DNC bid for the larger benefit to the borough.

“I thought it would be very good for Brooklyn in general, in terms of its worldwide recognition and to further cement the brand of Brooklyn,” he said.

Though most saw Philadelphia’s win as Brooklyn’s loss, clothing store owner Sury Mukherjee had no opinion about the convention one way or the other. Sitting among the floor-to-ceiling leather jackets and boots in his store  Mondini at the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Dean Street  Mukherjee said big events at Barclays don’t help small businesses like his, anyway.

“All these events where they bring in people from outside  they really don’t shop. They just come for the event, then go out of the neighborhood in the train, right away,” he said. “It doesn’t really help any of the vendors here.”