Karafin School in Mount Kisco sues to stop ‘eviction’
Update, 1/11/23: On Jan. 9, Supreme Court Justice Gretchen Walsh vacated a temporary restraining order that forbade Kisco Radio Circle Associates from cancelling the Karafin School lease. On Jan. 4, after publication of this story, the landlord’s managing member, Anastasios Manitaras, responded to the school’s allegations, as detailed below.
A Mount Kisco high school for special needs students is trying to block its landlord from evicting it from its home of nearly 41 years, but the landlord says it is only trying to collect unpaid rent.
The Karafin School Inc. sued Kisco Radio Circle Associates, of Nanuet, Rockland County, Dec. 15 in Westchester Supreme Court. The school claims it does not owe $226,256 in back rent and depicts the quarrel as a “minor rent dispute.”
A threatened eviction would leave “dozens of at-risk, special needs children with nowhere else to turn,” the complaint states, and deprive them of  “crucial education and services.”
But Anastasios Manitaras, the managing member of Kisco Radio Circle Associates, states in a Jan. 4 affidavit that the demand for back rent is not a default notice or attempt to terminate the lease.
He is well aware of the nature of the school and the needs of the students, Manitaras said. “That is at least part of the reason why we have repeatedly modified the lease term and reduced the rent to accommodate plaintiff.”
The Karafin School, at 40 Radio Circle Drive near the Mount Kisco post office, is a private school with 56 students from low-income communities in New York and Connecticut. It serves children with autism, emotional and learning disabilities, and other health impairments, according to its website.
The school began leasing the building in 1982 at $11,000 a month plus other fees. The lease has been renewed several times, including a 10-year extension in 2021 where the base rent was set at $29,850 a month and culminates at $35,304 a month.
On Dec. 2 the school was given 14 days to pay $226,256 for eight months of unpaid rent, Karafin claims, or surrender the premises or face eviction.
Karafin does not dispute that it owes back rent, but it says the landlord used a monthly rate that is $632 too high and did not include a two-month credit that was promised because of restrictions resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Manitaras stated that he has made several concessions over the years. In 2020 he granted a two-month rent concession when the school indicated the possibility of filing for bankruptcy protection, for example, and he agreed to reduce the monthly payment when the 10-year lease extension began.
The school has repeatedly acknowledged the concessions, he said. For instance a school official wrote in a November 2021 email, “You and your family has been more than fair to us.”
Karafin asked the court to declare that it has not breached the lease and that the landlord may not terminate the lease. Alternatively, if the court finds that the school did breach the lease, it wants “reasonable time” to correct the problem.
Manitaras is asking the court to dismiss the complaint so that a payment proceeding can be filed in Mount Kisco Justice Court.
“This case is but a negotiating tactic,” Manitaras states in the affidavit. “Having failed to manage its business properly to avoid running into this kind of a problem, plaintiff comes … pulling on the court’s heart strings and taking advantage of its students’ needs.”
While he has empathy for the needs of the students, he said  he needs to pay the mortgage, taxes and other expenses of operating, repairing and maintaining the building.
Karafin is represented by Nassau County attorney Kevin T. MacTiernan. Kisco Radio Circle Associates is represented by White Plains lawyer Leonard Benowich.