THE letter arrived in late December, striking Carol Iorio like a stake in the heart.
“It left me more shaken than my breast-cancer diagnosis!” she told me
The letter informed Carol, 60, and husband Tony, 63, that they were no longer welcome at the Sands Beach Club on Long Island – where for 33 years they swam, raised kids and gossiped about neighbors’ sexual high jinks.
Now, if they set foot in the private club, “you will be treated as a trespasser,” said the manager’s letter.
Carol was floored. Then, she sued.
In a lawsuit, the Iorios charge that they were kicked out of the Sands because the owner wanted to install another woman into the Iorios’ prized beachfront cabana.
But the Sands claims Carol Iorio was dismissed for being a gossipy yenta – according to a written answer to the suit.
The Iorios joined the club, in Atlantic Beach, in 1973, when it was El Patio. They were assigned a prime cabana, B-1 – whose large deck offers sweeping ocean views.
Enter the other woman.
According to court papers, Donna Grossman, a divorced, ex-physical trainer in her 40s, took over the lesser cabana next door. She became the talk of the club, the Iorios say, because she was awarded “unlimited parking and guest passes.” She also had the attention of the owner, Stuart Yachnowitz, 57 – who, Carol complains, woke her up from naps with his squawking radio whenever he visited.
In an affidavit, Stuart Yachnowitz swears he got rid of the Iorios after Carol told his wife, Lynn, “I was cheating on my wife with Mrs. Grossman.”
“If I allowed the Iorios to come back to the beach club for the summer season of 2007, I would be looked at very poorly in the eyes of my many members,” he said.
Carol denies she gabbed. “It was a land grab,” she insists.
Contained in the court file is a supposed smoking gun – a contract awarding Donna Grossman the Iorios’ coveted cabana for this summer.
Grossman and Yachnowitz refused comment. But his lawyer, Jack Glasser, insists Yachnowitz and the woman were “just friends.”
Grossman was ousted from the club anyway, before summer, and the cabana assigned to another family. Glasser said she was thrown out to soothe the owner’s wife, who’d started a divorce action based on loose talk.
The Iorios don’t want money. They want the cabana back.