The Star-K kashrut certification company denied this week that it gave Kosher Sports, Inc., a company with concessions at seven sports stadiums in the eastern United States, permission to keep its trio of stands at the New York Mets’ ballpark open on Shabbat.
The New York Post reported that Kosher Sports, based in Englewood, N.J.,last week sued the Mets in Brooklyn’s Federal Court, claiming that the team has barred the firm from selling its products at Citi Field during Friday night and Saturday games while Star-K agreed to let them stay open.
“There’s no truth to that story,” Rabbi Avrom Pollak, president of Baltimore-based Star-K, told The Jewish Week. “We certainly would not have allowed [Kosher Sports] to be open on Shabbos.”
The Kosher Sports suit claims that the Mets, in forbidding Shabbat sales, is in violation of a 10-year contract that gives the firm exclusive rights to sell kosher food at the Flushing, Queens stadium that opened last season.
In an emailed statement, Kosher Sports owner Jonathan Katz declined to address the suit directly. “We are not open on Shabbos,” he said.
The company’s attorney, Ira Tokayer, said in a separate statement, “Kosher Sports has been, is and will remain in full compliance with all its halachic requirements.
The Mets said that the organization is “in full compliance with all obligations under our contract with Kosher Sports. Their claims are without merit.”
The vendor, according to the Post, alleges that it has lost a half-million dollars in sales because of the team’s policy and is seeking $1 million in compensation.
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