The president of Casa Rina Restaurant in Thornwood has filed for bankruptcy to buy breathing room to pay more than $800,000 in state taxes and SBA loans and to forestall foreclosure on the property.
Tommy Stratigakis petitioned for Chapter 11 protection on Aug. 28 for Stratis Corp., the corporate owner of Casa Rina, and on Sept. 6 for AKJS Corp., the owner of the property at 866 Commerce St., in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains.
“Current financial difficulties stem from COVID and a downturn in business due to COVID,” Stratigakis stated in an affidavit.
Casa Rina was formed in 2001 and operates as a family style Italian restaurant.
In 2018, the restaurant filed for Chapter 11 protection with Stratigakis citing “financial reverses (that) began about two years ago when New York State began to aggressively seek payment for sales tax due.”
About $50,000 was owed then, according to Stratigakis. Then the state rejected a reasonable payment plan, he said, and he needed bankruptcy relief to protect the business from a state seizure of its bank accounts.
The court dismissed the case nearly a year later, based on a U.S. Trustee’s report that cited failures by Stratis to file monthly operating reports, appear at a creditors meeting, maintain property insurance, close pre-bankruptcy bank accounts and pay bankruptcy fees.
In the new case, Stratis declared $172,822 in assets and $1,091,624 in liabilities.
The $50,000 state tax liability from 2018 had widened to $526,625 and the restaurant owed the U.S. Small Business Administration about $300,000.
The SBA, however, has submitted a claim for $543,295 for loans taken out in 2020 and 2021.
The state Department of Taxation and Finance lists Stratis as 229th on its list of top 250 delinquent business taxpayers, as of August. It put the total amount owed as $321,033 for corporate, sales and use, and withholding taxes.
In the AKJS petition, Stratigakis declared $2,940,550 in assets and $1,129,614 in liabilities.
The business is owned by Stratigakis and his father, and it leases the property to Casa Rina for $9,000 a month and rents an apartment for $2,500 a month.
AKJS owes $250,000 in property taxes to the Town of Mount Pleasant, according to Stratigakis, and about $850,000, that he disputes, to Noah Bank.
Stratigakis states in an affidavit that he has a commitment to refinance the property based on a recent appraisal of more than $2.9 million, but he was unable to complete the refinancing because the bank had set a foreclosure action for Sept. 7.
He said bankruptcy will give him breathing room to develop a plan to refinance the property.
Stratigakis is represented by Harrison attorney H. Bruce Bronson Jr.
