Thornwood diner drama divides family factions

BY BILL HELTZEL Bheltzel@westfairinc.com

Amother’s bequest has created a short menu of options for two family factions f ighting over a Greek diner in Thornwood.

Last year, the Stefanopoulos faction sued to ban the Thanos faction from the Thornwood Coach Diner and recover $100,000 allegedly stolen from the business.

This month, the Thanos faction petitioned Westchester Supreme Court to dissolve the business and liquidate the assets.

“The type of intense discord that has developed,” the Thanos petition states, “has created such disruption and deadlock that ef f icient management by the shareholders, directors and of f icers is impossible, with no chance of repair or resurrection of any positive business relationship.”

Thornwood Coach Diner on Kensico Road has been a mainstay in the community for 50-some years. In 2018, NCS Kensico Inc. bought the business.

Originally, ownership was divided equally between Stefan Stefanopoulos, ing to the complaint f iled May 19 in U.S. District Court in White Plains.

But an attorney who represented Universal Construction owner John Adorno in a previous lawsuit f iled in Putnam Supreme Court cited evidence that the f ire department had institutional knowledge and involvement in the dumping.

“It is a beggars belief that no one at PVVFD,” Albany attorney Alita J. Giuda stated in a March court f iling, “was aware of the dumping site of a planned multi-million dollar f irehouse project.”

The dispute arose in 2016 when the New York Department of Environmental Conservation received a complaint about the site. Investigators found metal, plastic, asphalt shingles, fabric, vinyl, lumber and ceramic tile.

Cristos Thanos and their mother-in-law, Dina Rentoulis.

Dina Rentoulis died in 2021 and her onethird interest in NCS was bequeathed to her daughters, Tammy and Christina.

Tammy is married to Cristos Thanos’ brother, Ari. Christina is married to Stefan Stefanopoulos. The resulting combination left the two families with a 50 -50 share of the business.

Stefan sued Tammy, Ari and Cristos Thanos a year ago.

Stefanopoulos claims that the Thanos faction demanded that their shares be bought out, and when a price could not be agreed on, they disrupted business.

The Thanoses allegedly stole food, according to the complaint, f ired a manager, intentionally bumped into staff in the kitchen, sat in reserved seats in the dining areas, screamed in the dining room in the presence of customers, and more, “chasing customers away and making it dif f icult to operate,” to coerce a buyout.

In January 2022, Cristos Thanos allegedly withdrew $100,000 from a corporate checking account without permission, and has refused to return the money.

According to the Thanos petition, the Stefanopoulos faction “abrogated to themselves the total control of the operations and excluded the Thanoses from “any chance of receiving their rightful portion of the corporate prof its.”

If they could, according to the petition, the Thanoses would f ire the Stefanopouloses and bar them from the premises.

But with no way to break a tie, they

DEC also ascertained that a f ireman, Charlie Milo, had given Universal Construction permission to dump f ill on the site, according to a state report. Milo, who volunteered for 63 years and rose to the rank of captain, died in January at age 82.

Adorno told a DEC investigator that some of the materials had come from a demolition site in the Bronx, according to the complaint, but most came from Metro Green’s facility in Mount Vernon.

The f ire department hired HDR Engineering to assess the dump. HDR’s 2017 report concluded that the site mostly contained construction and demolition debris and a mixture of sand and silt.

Samples revealed semi-volatile organic compounds, metals, PCBs, pesticides and stockpiles of asbestos-containing materials that are considered hazardous substances.

DEC determined that the f ire department had operated a solid waste management facility without a permit, and in 2019 the f ire department agreed to remediate the site.

The f ire house has been built, and the facility also houses the Putnam Valley Volunteer Ambulance Corps.

Now the f ire department is trying to recover its cleanup costs.

In January, it petitioned Putnam Supreme Court for pre-action discovery, to identify everyone responsible for dumping contaminated materials on its property.

Putnam Justice Victor G. Grossman ruled on March 17 that the f ire department may obtain information from Adorno that identi f ies who trucked materials to the site, the owners of properties where materials were obtained, developers and contractors whose materials were hauled to the site, intermediaries who arranged or planned the disposals, and owners and operators of places where the materials were stockpiled before being dumped in Putnam Valley.