A woke Lower East Side bookstore is bringing fear and loathing to the neighborhood by luring hordes of drug addicts to their storefront with clothes, hygiene products, food and drinks — and even a bathroom where they can shoot up, neighbors told The Post.
Since Bluestockings Cooperative Bookstore opened their doors on Suffolk Street in April 2021, the block between Delancey and Rivington streets has transformed into “a zombie apocalypse,” with strung-out drug addicts smoking crack, fentanyl and injecting junk into their arms in broad daylight — all just a stone’s throw away from a preschool, exasperated residents said.
“I’d never seen heroin in my life before, and [now] I see it every day and my kids see it,” said Jason Jones, 47, who’s lived on the block for 18 years with his wife and 12- and 14-year-old kids.
“The bookstore has created chaos while being a magnet for people that want to do drugs and hangout without any pressure in this neighborhood — and it’s also attracted drug dealers,” Jones continued.
Bluestockings boasts on its website that it is a “collectively-run activist center, community space and feminist bookstore . . . that is radically inclusive of all genders, cultures, expansive sexualities and identities.”
It is also a state-recognized Opiate Overdose Prevention Program, which pushes “harm reduction services” like Narcan, drug-testing strips and a used needle-drop off bin — all of which critics say only enable junkies.
In just the first 45 minutes the bookstore was open one day this week, The Post observed four apparent addicts collect free toiletries and water.
One individual with a suitcase occupied the bathroom for 14 minutes.
Another handful of disheveled vagrants — at least one of whom lit up a crack pipe — loitered on the sidewalk across the street.
A building superintendent who’s worked for 29 years on the block said he’s been in altercations with some of the addicts — with one brandishing a handgun at him, and another threatening him: “Your blood will spill.”
“We have to deal with this 24/7, and our lives are at stake now,” said the man, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of his safety.
When residents such as 66-year-old Maddine Insalaco — who’s lived on the block since 1997 — have voiced their concerns, they are told they are “entitled,” he said.
“We get the cheek of people in the bookstore telling us that we are entitled, we don’t have sensitivity to these poor and ailing drug addicts — when we actually do. We just think they need to be helped in a different way,” said Insalaco.
One of the shop’s owners, Raquel Espasande — who said the store would “proudly” add sterile needles to their list of freebies if they had the state’s permission — claimed griping residents’ hearts are simply in the wrong place.
“It’s pretty frustrating that the danger that people are concerned about is drug use, but by that they don’t mean the very real danger that drug users are in of lethal overdose — they mean that they have to walk by and see it,” Espasande, 26, said.
Espasande denied playing any role in the rise of unwelcome visitors on the block.
The drug addicts “were here before us and the neighborhood has been, for a very long time, an active drug use place. I don’t think [people] are shooting up and doing crack outside the preschool because we’re here,” said Espasande.
The state Department of Health made a surprise visit to the store in August following complaints from residents and several elected officials, but found that “the presence of an OOPP administered by Bluestocking . . . is not causing quality of life issues on the block.”
To combat the open air drug usage on Suffolk Street, Assembly Member Grace Lee, who represents the Lower East Side, said more light posts would be going into the area.
But residents are not convinced this will deter the “zombie” horde.
“These people are trading drugs and doing drugs in broad daylight, so I don’t really think that having more lights at night is going to resolve the problem,” Insalaco said.
