Car Crash into Lou’s Corner Store Closes it for Good

Around 9:53 a.m. on March 17, Helen Lascalere accidently put her foot on the gas instead of her brakes and rammed her car into the front of Lou’s Corner Store on Frederick St. in Cortlandt Manor, New York State Police reported.

The car went through the wooden front wall and the knocked glass display counters against each other, pinning owner Jack Toia behind one of the counters, causing him to fracture his wrist.

Now, 74-year-old Toia is set to recover from more than just a wrist injury. The consequences of the crash have led him to close his 40-year-old family business for good. 

“We were just squeaking by,” said Guy Toia, Jack’s son and manager of the store, who explained that when they opened in 1971 they were the only deli around, and are now surrounded by other similar businesses. “Being closed is really damaging…so we decided to liquidate the business.”

The Town of Cortlandt closed Lou’s due to structural damage, so the Toias donated perishables to a local church and the community and sold their beer to local restaurants last week.

Guy explained that his father does not own the building so they were dependent on the building owner to make repairs, which Guy said he doubted would happen quickly. 

“This is like the fifth time the store’s been hit,” said Guy, 48. “The owner wanted us out anyway.”

The Town of Cortlandt said this is the second time it had to close the store in the last few years. After the first time the Town required the building owner to add bumpers to the parking lot. The parking spaces also had about 4-foot high concrete posts in the center of each spot, but Lascalere managed to drive between the posts, which were more than a car's-width apart.

 “The accident compromised the wall and possibly the roof so we told them they had to close,” said Ken Hoch, Cortlandt’s code office manager and assistant to the director for the town’s Department of Technical Services.            

Two customers and an employee were also in the store at the time of the accident. One customer, a teenage girl, was hit in the head by a magazine rack knocked over by the impact, but didn’t appear to be seriously injured. The employee and second customer were unharmed, Guy said.

Lascalere, the driver, was transported to the Hudson Valley Hospital Center and appeared shaken up but unharmed, police said. No one was charged following the incident.

“She feels really bad,” said Lou’s manager Guy Toia, who spoke to Lascalere, 73, a regular customer, after the accident.

The corner store was originally opened as a gas station and deli/ice cream shop in 1926. The Troi’s have owned the business since 1971, when Guy’s grandfather took over the store from its previous owner. “We kept the name because everybody already knew it as Lou’s,” Guy said.

“My father is going to go crazy,” Guy said. “He worked here all the time. He is already thinking of something else to do to keep his mind busy. Talking to customers was his therapy and he is going to miss that.”

Customers were close with Guy as well.

“Guy is one of my best friends. They are a very good family. People from all over are going to miss them,” said Thomas Stokes, 44, a Peekskill resident who has been patronizing Lou’s since 1983.

Stokes and Toia explained that because the store was open 24/7 a lot of people who worked night shifts at the Hudson Valley Hospital Center, on the police force or elsewhere, frequented Lou’s store in need of a tasty sandwich in the middle of the night.

“I remember coming here for sandwiches back in high school,” Stokes said.

Guy said that “Murphy’s Law,” a hearty sandwich of chicken cutlet, capicola and Monterey Jack cheese was the most popular order at the counter.

Perhaps Lou’s Corner Store was simply subject to the adage of Murphy’s Law: everything that can go wrong will go wrong-at least when it came to parking.

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