EDITORIAL AGEP Ousting Santos stops next Santos

Since the release of the House Ethics Committee’s report on Rep. George Santos last week, the public is once again faced with the question it has asked since The New York Times first documented Santos’ fabulism 11 months ago: Who is to blame for the monstrosity that is Santos’ House membership? We can continue to debate whether it’s the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, House Republican leadership or local news that is responsible.

However, it’s shocking that, at a time when it seems practically no one trusts politicians and government, no one thought to put that skepticism to use.

No one entity is ultimately responsible for Santos’ rise to power, so maybe we all bear some responsibility. If Santos has taught us anything, it’s that we should ask questions about those seeking to represent us — clearly, we cannot continue to take even the most basic facts from candidates at face value. Some may say that’s too harsh, that we should not assume the worst in people or that questioning their finances, for instance, is an invasion of their privacy. But Santos has given us no choice but to assume the worst, and that is a price future candi- dates will have to pay — and for good reason.

Simply put, constituents do not want to find they have elected the next George Santos.

A big step in preventing that is for the House to expel Santos from office once it returns from its Thanksgiving recess Monday. Ousting him would send a message that the House deems itself a body worth protecting, and that the people’s voice ought to be properly represented. While expulsion seems to be gaining traction among House Republicans, some argue Santos ought not to be expelled until the Department of Justice finds him guilty of a crime. But the House is not a court of law. A vote to remove Santos from the House is not about whether he broke the law — it’s about upholding the integrity of a body that is in desperate need of some. And if Santos is not worthy of being expelled, who is? We’d rather not wait and see.

We at the Chronicle previously called for the congressman to resign. We stand by that. Perhaps Santos’ shameless refusals to do so offer the chance for the House to end any notion that someone could get away with this again.

Go small on Saturday

First comes Thursday’s Thanksgiving feast. Then comes Black Friday’s shopping madness. And that’s followed by Small Business Saturday, now in its fourtheenth year.

Just as it sounds, Small Business Saturday is the day consumers are encouraged not to spend online or at the big box stores, but to support the independent retailer instead. The brainchild of American Express, it’s really caught on, with 65 million people shopping at small businesses on SBS 2022 and those customers spending $17.9 billion at them last year, according statistics cited by the company. Supporting small, independent stores is important anywhere, but maybe nowhere more so than in Queens. The quintessential mom-and-pop shop is practically an icon here, and it’s inherently hard for them to compete against the giants and the etailers. We hope that you’ll make the decision to patronize them on Saturday especially — and not just because they make up a large share of our advertisers, enabling us to deliver the news to you week after week. They also make up a large share of every neighborhood in Queens, and their strength is our strength. Shop away!

Lettersto The Editor

It’s all going to pot

Dear Editor:

In last week’s edition, there was an article about Community Board 5 and others opposing the applicants that want to operate cannabis shops in the neighborhood. They are using a law that says they can’t be within 500 feet of a school because kids will walk past it. We should ask ourselves how many liquor stores, bars, stores that sell cigarettes and nudie magazines, all the things we don’t want kids to have, are closer than 500 feet to a school now.

The sale of alcohol was prohibited from 1920-33. That didn’t work. It only made the mob rich, caused people to die from bootleg booze and put lots of people in jail.

Richard Polgar Maspeth

States 51 and 52?

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These are legal products and the law is that you must be 21 to purchase them. It’s illegal to sell to minors and that should be good enough. We can’t shield children from everything we don’t want them to know about.

It’s now two years since recreational cannabis has been legalized and New York has done a terrible job rolling out licenses for businesses. Gov. Hochul wants the illegal stores that sell bootleg pot and cigarettes closed because the state is losing tax revenues and she is also concerned people are buying products that may be unsafe.

Right now the majority of people buying cannabis and cigarettes are getting it on the black market. NYC cigarette tax is the highest in the nation and I’m sure it will be the same on cannabis. Legal businesses as well as the farmers are losing lots of money in their investments and so is the state.

As the child of two native-born Puerto Ricans, I wanted to correct some assertions in Mr. Riecks’ letter regarding statehood (Nov. 16, all editions).

The Democrats cannot grant statehood to Washington, DC, or Puerto Rico. Only Congress can approve a petition for statehood under the territorial clause of the Constitution.

The Democrats and a small number of Republicans do want to give the District and the Island the opportunity to permanently resolve their respective status dilemmas. (See Puerto Rico Status Act bills for 2023 in the House: H.R. 2757 and Senate: S. 3231)

The citizens of DC are a bit better off than the 3.2 million U.S. citizens oof Puerto Rico. They can vote in presidential elections, but like Puerto Rico they have no voting representation in the House or Senate.

The statehood option was NOT voted down as Mr. Riecks claims. Puerto Rico has voted for the statehood option three times: in 2012, 2017 and 2020, according to Puerto Rico’s Territorial Election Commission.

One thing is clear: The status quo for Puerto Rico is unjust and undemocratic.

Gene Roman Bron x

Remembering Alan Hevesi

Dear Editor:

Re Michael Gannon’s Nov. 16 obit: “Alan Hevesi, 83, storried, scarred pol.” Gannon skillfully chronicled Hevisi’s achievements and failures, but omitted some key aspects of his life that I recall. Alan Hevesi and I were classmates at Forest Hills High School (1954-57) an d Queens College (1957-62), where he was a top student and talented athlete who played for both