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Municipal Tobacco License Proposal Advances

by | Feb 14, 2025 11:35 am | Comments (15)

Laura Glesby photos

Local licenses, inspections are on the horizon for tobacco retailers.

Health Director Maritza Bond: Inspections would protect kids from exposure to addictive carcinogens.

The city’s Health Department could soon have the power to crack down on smoke shops that violate the law — by way of a proposed municipal license system that would allow for stricter local regulation of the 212 businesses already OK’d by the state to sell tobacco in New Haven.

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The Once & Future Green: A Timeline

by | Feb 14, 2025 9:00 am | Comments (17)

Not Godfrey's goat. But you get the idea.

A parking garage under the Green? Not on the Proprietors' watch.

The Green almost had an underground parking garage and a statue of JFK — and it did at one time have a state house and Seth Godfrey’s goat.

As the city, the Proprietors, the just-formed New Haven Green Conservancy and other stakeholders” of all kinds are weighing in on the next turn in the evolution of the Green’s uses, here is just a taste of what was and what might have been on the city’s central greenspace over the past four centuries.

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Crack Probe Preceded Fatal Shoot-Out

by | Feb 13, 2025 5:06 pm | Comments (11)

West Haven Officer Robert Rappa's body-worn camera footage. Note: Videos show graphic violence.

West Haven police had been following Aaron Freeman for seven months — setting up controlled buys of crack cocaine, watching him allegedly come and go from a Mill River Crossing apartment rented by a woman he appeared to be in a relationship with.

That drug-focused investigation culminated with an early-morning raid of the Grand Avenue residence that led to the cops’ seizure of nearly $6,600 in cash, multiple cellphones, and dozens of pills and baggies filled with white and tan powder substances. 

That raid also sparked a shoot-out between police and Freeman, 35, in front of an 8‑year-old girl, a 32-year-old woman, and a 52-year-old grandfather, killing Freeman and injuring two West Haven cops.

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Murphy On McMahon: "Hell No"

by | Feb 13, 2025 5:02 pm | Comments (19)

Murphy (right) to McMahon (left) at Thursday's hearing: Possibility of revoking funding for schools with programming based on ethnic or racial identity is "chilling."

WASHINGTON — After grilling her at a confirmation hearing, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said Thursday he is a hell no” on confirming Connecticut businesswoman Linda McMahon to be U.S. secretary of education, saying President Donald Trump’s executive order curbing diversity programs would result in the beleaguered agency micromanaging” public school curricula.

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Best Video Passes The Hat

by | Feb 13, 2025 12:01 pm | Comments (4)

Karen Ponzio Photos

Acting ED Bruton: Trying to raise $50K in 8 weeks.

Best Video Film and Cultural Center is reaching out for help. 

The Spring Glen third space — which has morphed over the years from a cool spot to seek out the most eclectic videotapes to a beloved gathering place where performances, speakers, and other live events happen alongside rows and rows of films that are old and new (and yes, there are still some videotapes) — has launched a fundraising campaign to keep the nonprofit afloat and sailing into its future.

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Mandy Challengers Turn Eyes To State

by | Feb 12, 2025 3:01 pm | Comments (6)

Dereen Shirnekhi photo

Terri Ricks (in red), with Mark Griffin (right), thanks Mandy's Ari Hoffman and Sara Bigman and pushes for them to encourage other management companies to enact similar policies.

After settling a tenant-discrimination case that changed how Mandy Management approaches renters with criminal histories, Mark Griffin is ready to take his fair-housing fight to the state legislature — as he also awaits a full pardon for his decades-old misdemeanor conviction. 

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Zoners Nix Smoke Shop Next To Strip Club

by and | Feb 12, 2025 1:11 pm | Comments (22)

Zachary Groz photo

Applicant Villanueva: Spot is a "gold mine"

Thomas Breen photo

Landlord Marty Halprin: Time to look for another potential tenant.

A new smoke shop won’t be able to open up next to a methadone clinic and a strip club — after city zoners stamped out the latest bid to convert a vacant storefront into a tobacco sales gold mine.”

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Special Ed Staff Shortages Spotlighted

by | Feb 12, 2025 10:53 am | Comments (11)

Laura Glesby file photo

Typhanie Jackson: "There are some places where we have had some gaps."

High burnout rates, low pay, and insufficient state funding have led to an untenable shortage of special education staff in New Haven public schools.

School employees and parents conveyed that message to Education Committee alders — calling attention to lapsed services for some of the city’s highest-needs students.

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Uh Oh ... $20M Climate Grant In Limbo

by | Feb 12, 2025 8:25 am | Comments (11)

CT Mirror | Shahrzad Rasekh photo

City climate czar Winter: "It's maddening."

Ask Steve Winter how many times a day he’s checked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) grant funds portal since Jan. 21 and he answers with a wry laugh: I couldn’t even say.”

Jan. 21 — one day into the Trump administration — he received a notification that the $20 million Community Change grant the City of New Haven had won, in partnership with a coalition of local groups, would be available for use.

But he has not been able to access the account.

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Union Prez Files Schools OSHA Complaint

by | Feb 11, 2025 1:29 pm | Comments (26)

Maya McFadden photo

Blatteau: "If we can't be safe in our buildings, what else matters here?"

(Updated) The president of the city’s teachers union has filed a state workplace safety complaint against the public school district for persistent problems with mold, leaks, air quality, and other conditions concerns at New Haven’s two largest high schools. 

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Power To The Novelist

by | Feb 11, 2025 9:45 am | Comments (2)

Author Josaphat: The Panther story needed a novelist's eye.

Kingdom of No Tomorrow
By Fabienne Josaphat
Algonquin Books/Hatchette

Nettie Boileau had choices to make.

Should she sign up with the revolution taking shape in Oakland, the way her father fought back against Papa Doc in Haiti? Or should she pursue her dreams of becoming a doctor?

Which lover should she make a life with? Clia, who brought her into the Black Panther Party? Or Melvin, the magnetic rising party leader?

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