To the Editor:

Has this happened to you too?  You mention to someone that you live in Voorheesville and receive a puzzled if not wholly blank look.  Maybe they ask, “You mean that place in Jersey?” or, “Oh, by that Catholic shrine near the Thruway?”

So you quickly add, “You know… where Smitty’s Pizza is,” and it’s better than pointing out the village on Google Maps.

Smith’s Tavern is very much Voorheesville’s identity.  It’s why the proposed “trade” of Smitty’s for Stewart’s is, in its own way, worse for village residents than the trade of Babe Ruth for a bag of dollars was for denizens of Beantown.

Horrible as the latter deal was from a personnel standpoint, the money at least allowed the owner of the Red Sox to pay off a large debt secured by collateral in the form of Fenway Park.  That iconic baseball temple might otherwise have been foreclosed on, which might even have led to the then homeless Yankees playing in Boston!

The deal, of course, also led to the construction of another grand, iconic structure, the House That Ruth Built, or Yankee Stadium.  So the notorious transaction that gave rise to “The Curse of the Bambino” at least also led to the preservation of community identity in the form of Fenway for Sox fans, and to the creation of such identity in the form of The Stadium for Yankees fans.

Now compare this with the Smitty’s-for-Stewart’s deal.  For residents of the village and surrounding communities, we get a spiffy new gasarama that will offer the same coffee (weak), doughnuts (commercial), and ice cream (decent) already available at all the other Stewart’s shops that blanket our area.  Blink and you might miss one.

And we get new, possibly environmentally hazardous gas tanks and pumps to compete with the relatively safe ones that presently sit right next door at the locally-run Mobil convenience store.  Far worse, however, is that, unlike the Bambino deal, this one doesn’t preserve or create a community’s identity — it trashes it.

That Smitty’s will never grace the pages of Architectural Digest in no way detracts from the regional icon status it has attained through its pizza, its beer, its circling train set, and, above all, the decades of hospitality and goodwill it has brought to generations of area families.

To the Dake family, large majority owners of Stewart’s, I say that, if the giant outpouring of emotion evident in the online petition doesn’t itself move you to question this transaction, then just look at it from a business standpoint.  That emotion is coming from your prospective customer base — the good people of New Scotland, Bethlehem, Altamont, Guilderland, the Hilltowns and beyond — who will determine the success or failure of this enterprise.  I know that, if you decide to proceed, I for one, will never spend a cent at this store or any other Stewart’s shop.  I imagine many others share this sentiment.

To the present owners of Smith’s, first, thank you for preserving this institution for these many years.  Operating a tavern is no easy task, and you did it well.  No one questions your right to retire or profit from the sale of your business.

But I’m certain you know that Smitty’s is not just any business.  I’d be surprised if its iconic reputation wasn’t a motivating factor in your purchasing it in the first place.

You have neither a legal nor moral obligation to insure its perpetuation.  But to me, there is at least a civic obligation to the citizens and the communities that have supported you to make your best effort to sell to people seeking to preserve the tavern.

From your comments, it appears that one such attempt was made but “the numbers didn’t work.”  I’d ask that you at least give it another try or two prior to taking the course of least resistance, even if that delays your plans. If there are no takers, then God bless, go enjoy the retirement you’ve earned.

In that case, I’ll just have to hope that this sale doesn’t become “The Curse of Smith’s Tavern,” under which Voorheesville has to endure an 86-year struggle before again finding its identity and a comparable symbol of its way of life.

Rick Curreri

Voorheesville