Forum Post: OWS upsetting & terrorizing local working merchants

A business owner near the Occupy Wall Street encampment claims she has been repeatedly harassed and threatened with bodily harm by protesters after she and her employees refused to give in to their outlandish demands.

“I’ve been told, ‘Watch your back!’ 10 times,” Stacey Tzortzatos, owner of Panini & Co. Breads, located across from Zuccotti Park, told The Post yesterday.

She and her employees are terrified by the constant threats, which she said began after she demanded the protesters stop using her shop’s restroom as a place to bathe every day.

The final straw came about two weeks ago, when the demonstrators broke a bathroom sink, flooding the shop, and clogged the toilet -- setting her back $3,000 in damages.

he put up a sign that said the bathroom was out of order, but they tore it down shortly afterward, she said

“I have the police in here 10 times a day, [and] I’m the bouncer. I’ve been called the spawn of the devil. “It’s unbelievable what goes on in here every day, ” Tzortzatos said.

And on Friday, she said, a crazed squatter burst into the shop and demanded that workers fill a 10-gallon container of water.

When they refused, “he banged it on the ground and started yelling” and threatened the staff, she said.

“He said he was entitled to have it for free.”

Tzortzatos said the unsafe conditions begin at around 5 p.m. every day, when “they come from the park drunk, under the influence of something.

“They use one of our doorways as a bathroom, and we have to scrub it down every morning.

“I’ve had people come in here and yell, ‘Boycott! Boycott!’

“They unplugged my ATM machine and plugged in their computers,” Tzortzatos said.

Another businessman, who complained to The Post about the squatters’ behavior last week, said yesterday that the situation has since deteriorated, adding, “You don’t know the half of it.”

But the protesters appear to be digging in, erecting three of what will eventually be more than two dozen, 16-by-16-foot military-style tents that will help them stave off hypothermia in the coming winter.