THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. ** Monday, October 7, 2019 |A12A
Randy Santos was arraigned
on charges of murder and
attempted murder. Police
investigated Saturday’s attacks,
which were carried out with a
metal pole, in Chinatown.STATE STREET|By Jimmy Vielkind
County Executive Race Is Seen as Bellwether
The elec-
tion for execu-
tive of Erie
County, N.Y., is
being fought
over road pav-
ing and economic-develop-
ment policy but is also shap-
ing up to be a bellwether of
voter sentiment for next
year’s presidential election.
Mark Poloncarz, an in-
cumbent Democrat seeking a
third term in the post, is
urging voters to stick with
his policies. He faces Lynne
Dixon, a county legislator
who is a registered member
of the Independence Party
but is also running on the
Republican line.
While there are almost
twice as many enrolled Dem-
ocrats as Republicans in the
county, the GOP feels it has a
shot. Ms. Dixon said in a re-
cent interview that voter
frustration over recent state
policies enacted by Demo-
crats—including a law that
will let illegal immigrants ap-
ply for driver’s licenses—have
led to a desire for change.
The law was pushed by
downstate Democrats who
now control the state govern-
ment. A September poll by
the Siena College Research In-
stitute found that 61% of up-
state voters surveyed oppose
the policy. There has long
been a view in the county,
whose unemployment rate is
higher than most downstate
areas’, that the state isn’t re-
sponding to its concerns.
“We’re not giving thebreaks to the people who
have tried hard their whole
life just to do the right thing,”
Ms. Dixon said. “I think peo-
ple in Erie County are willing
to look at the issues and how
their lives are personally be-
ing impacted, and look be-
yond a party label.”
She emphasizes her status
as an enrolled Independent,
and her campaign signs are
pink and purple rather than
traditional Republican red.
She said she voted for Presi-
dent Trump in 2016, but that
it was too early to say who
she would support for presi-
dent in 2020.
Still, her campaign has at-
tracted the attention of U.S.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Repub-
lican from the North Country,
who headlined a fundraising
luncheon last month. And Re-
publican State Committee
Chairman Nick Langworthy,
who resides in the county,
said he is doing everything
he can to help Ms. Dixon.
“Erie County is a bell-
wether county,” Mr. Lang-
worthy said in an interview.
“To win statewide, we have
to win in Erie County again.”
About a third of Erie
County’s population lives in
Buffalo and Lackawanna, clas-
sic Rust Belt cities. It has
first-ring suburbs populated
by white ethnic groups and
rural communities to the
south and east. It still has an
industrial base, and both can-
didates have visited the
picket line at the General Mo-
tors plant in Tonawanda, justnorth of Buffalo.
Mr. Poloncarz acknowl-
edged that there is voter
frustration over the driver’s
license measure and said he
supports a lawsuit by Erie
County Clerk Michael Kearns
that challenges the law.
“If people are wondering
what Middle America is
thinking, they should pay at-
tention in Erie County,” Mr.
Poloncarz said. “I believe my
message of strong fiscal
leadership while also approv-
ing of progressive values res-
onates here, and if it doesn’t
that should be a sign.”AD SPENDING:Law
firms are spending more
than $10 per click on digital
advertising related to the
state’s Child Victims Act, a
level that a victim-advocacy
group says has crowded out
its own marketing efforts.
Michael Polenberg, vice
president for government af-
fairs at Safe Horizon, which
helps abuse survivors, said
his group was being outbid
by law firms for Google
search terms such as “child
victims act.”
Safe Horizon offers coun-
seling and other services forvictims who may not wish to
sue, particularly in instances
where the abuser was a fam-
ily member—not someone
employed by a large institu-
tion such as a school, church
or youth group.
The Wall Street Journal
reported last week that more
than 700 cases have been
filed so far under the Child
Victims Act, which extended
the civil and criminal statute
of limitations on child sex-
abuse cases and opened a
one-year window in which
people can sue their abusers
regardless of when the abuse
occurred. Just 16 cases name
only individuals as defen-
dants.
The top search result on
Google for “child victims
act” last week belonged to
Jeff Anderson & Associates,
which has brought more
than 200 cases in New York
since the window was first
opened in August.
Mike Finnegan, a partner
in the Minnesota-based firm,
said it was spending aggres-
sively on print, broadcast
and digital advertising. He
didn’t provide an overall fig-
ure, but said the firm sets a
daily cap on its digital out-
lay.
“It’s not our intention to
crowd anybody out,” Mr.
Finnegan said. “What we
want to make sure is that
survivors know about this
time period, and it is incred-
ibly, incredibly short.”[email protected]‘To win statewide,
we have to win in
Erie County again,’
GOP chairman says.The co-founders of AYR extended their pop-up shop on Lafayette
Street in NoHo several times before signing a three-year lease.BESS ADLER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
the nonprofit Coalition for the
Homeless, there were 61,
homeless people in New York
City in August.
Coalition for the Homeless
Policy Director Giselle Routhier
said in an interview that a
shortage of affordable housingis behind the problem. “We’re
not addressing the root causes,”
Ms. Routhier said. “The govern-
ment needs to provide people
with homes because the hous-
ing market isn’t doing it.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio decried
the killings. “We’re stunnedand horrified by this senseless
act of violence against the most
vulnerable members of our
community,” Mr. de Blasio said
in a statement posted on Twit-
ter Saturday. “It flies in the
face of the values of our city.”
A spokesperson for themayor said the city would be
sending mental-health out-
reach teams to the area where
the attacks occurred to provide
emotional support and connect
people to appropriate care.
That area of Chinatown is
known to be frequented byhomeless people, police offi-
cials said. An NYPD spokesper-
son said Sunday that officers
were conducting increased pa-
trols there. The identities of the
victims haven’t been released.
Officers were alerted to the
crime at 1:49 a.m. Saturday by
a 911 call from a person who
reported an assault on the
Bowery near Division Street,
police officials said. Officers
who responded to the call dis-
covered an unconscious victim
with head injuries, who was
later determined to be dead,
and another man who was
taken to a hospital with serious
head injuries, the officials said.
Witnesses at the scene told
officers that a man had struck
the victims on the head with a
metal object and fled on foot.
Officers began a search and ap-
prehended Mr. Santos nearby,
recovering his weapon, the of-
ficials said. Police later discov-
ered three more victims in the
vicinity, all homeless men.GREATER NEW YORK
A homeless man was
charged Sunday with the mur-
ders of four other homeless
men found beaten to death in
lower Manhattan’s Chinatown
neighborhood, New York Po-
lice Department officials said.
NYPD officials said the vic-
tims appeared to have been
sleeping on the street when
they were attacked early Satur-
day. Police said Randy Santos,
24 years old, struck them with
a metal pole similar in size to a
baseball bat. A fifth victim was
transported to a hospital with
serious head wounds in critical
condition, police said.
Mr. Santos had previous in-
teractions with police and was
known to be homeless, NYPD
officials said.
He was arraigned Sunday
on murder and attempted
murder charges, and a judge
ordered him held without bail.
He didn’t enter a plea. His at-
torney, Arnold Levine, de-
clined to comment.
NYPD Deputy Chief Michael
Baldassano, who is leading the
investigation, described the
beatings as “random attacks”
at a news conference Saturday.
Advocates for the homeless
said the incident serves as a
reminder of dangerous condi-
tions faced by homeless peo-
ple in New York City. Accord-
ing to a report published byBYBENCHAPMANHomeless Man Charged in Fatal Beatings
Advocates decry peril
after victims attacked
as they slept on street;
4 dead, 1 critically hurtFROM LEFT: JEENAH MOON/ASSOCIATED PRESS; RASHID UMAR ABBASI/PRESS POOLto shop today,” she said. “It
gave us a much more complete
data set than just, ‘This was
bought, and this was re-
turned.’ ”
Since AYR started its 680-
square-foot shop, it has
opened three other locations—
in Los Angeles, Denver and the
Hamptons, all of which started
as pop-ups.
One thing AYR learned from
pop-ups is that small spaces
work best for the brand. As a
result, the company would
prefer to open three more
small stores in New York City
than a 3,000-square-foot flag-
ship, Ms. Winter said.
In Brooklyn, Casey Dworkin
opened a two-month pop-up, the
Better Shop, as a way of show-
casing her direct-to-consumer
shoe brand, Sylven New York.
She then signed a two-year
lease in January for the space
on Grand Street in Williamsburg
but said she is still deciding
whether she will stay in bricks-
and-mortar retail long-term.
Ross Bailey, founder and
chief executive of Appear Here,
an online platform for flexible
leases, said he thinks the pay-
as-you-go model will become
the new norm. His company,
which also operates in London
and Paris, has seen one-fifth of
its brands extend their stays
past the original booking this
year, up from about 11% in 2018.
“The idea that there are go-
ing to be people doing 20-year
leases again, I think that’s sort
of the wrong view and wishful
thinking,” Mr. Bailey said.
But some real-estate brokers
remain confident landlords will
go back to demanding long-
term leases when vacancies fall
and rents stabilize.
“Once the market reaches a
new equilibrium, you’ll see
pop-ups become more challeng-
ing,” said Gene Spiegelman, a
vice chairman and principal at
Ripco Real Estate Corp.New York City pop-ups are
sticking around.
Long known as ephemeral
storefronts used to sell Hal-
loween costumes or generate
buzz for new products or per-
formers, pop-ups are increas-
ingly serving as trial runs for
retailers considering perma-
nent locations. Businesses
born online, in particular, are
using pop-ups to experiment
with offline shopping.
“It’s a way to test the market
with limited risk,” said Joanne
Podell, executive vice chairman
for retail services at the real-
estate company Cushman &
Wakefield. Pop-up shops are
lasting longer as online brands
take the time to understand the
dynamics of retail, she said.
Landlords usually prefer to
sign long-term leases, but high
retail vacancy rates in recent
years have made some more
willing to experiment with
shorter terms. A recent analy-
sis by the city comptroller’s
office found the city’s retail
vacancy rate increased from
4% in 2007 to 5.8% in 2017, the
most recent year for which
data was available, as online
shopping and high rents have
pressured shopkeepers.
The co-founders of AYR, a
women’s apparel brand that
started online in 2014, opened a
pop-up shop in December 2016
that was supposed to last three
months. They kept extending
their stay at the shop on Lafa-
yette Street in NoHo, however,
before signing a three-year
lease in January 2018.
Co-founder and Chief Exec-
utive Maggie Winter said they
wanted to understand and in-
teract with customers in a way
that wasn’t possible through
their website and Instagram
page. “Our idea was to test be-
fore we invest and not to pre-
tend to know how people wantBYKATEKINGSome Pop-Up Shops
Show Staying Power
Blessing of the Animals Held in Brooklyn
DOG HAS ITS DAY: The Rev. Craig Townsend blessed a pooch named Kebi at St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Brooklyn
Heights on Sunday. The event commemorated St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals, whose feast day is Oct. 4.JULIUS CONSTANTINE MOTAL/ASSOCIATED PRESSNY