Kim's Raided!

[schwenko]

From the NY Times June 10, 2005

Police Raid Video Store in East Village in Piracy Case
By THOMAS J. LUECK

A longtime fixture in the East Village, Mondo Kim's, a mecca for independent music and video at 6 St. Marks Place, was raided and closed for five hours on Wednesday by police officers who left with boxes filled with CD's, DVD's and computer equipment. Five store employees were charged with trademark counterfeiting.

According to several employees of the store, known widely for the its independent labels, and sometimes ornery staff, the police arrived about 1 p.m. on Wednesday, and ordered all customers to leave.

Then, all of the 20 or so clerks, managers and other employees who were working in the three-floor store, which sells DVD's, CD's, books and production equipment, were told to line up on the ground floor. The police quickly identified four men and one woman and led them away in handcuffs. They ordered everyone else to leave and searched the store until about 6 p.m., when officers filed out carrying boxes.

The police said yesterday that investigators had carried out a search warrant for counterfeit trademarked goods and that the material seized included nine computer towers, a CD burner, a laptop computer, 471 compact disks and 53 videos.

The employees charged with counterfeiting were identified as Theo Frimpong, 39, of the Bronx; Diana Kinscherf, 19, of Queens; Donald Stahl, 26, and Charles Bettis, 29, both of Brooklyn; and Craig Willingham, 32, of Manhattan.

Mondo Kim's is on a block of St. Marks Place, between Second and Third Avenues, that has long been a crossroads of bohemian culture. It and three other Manhattan stores known as Kim's Video and Music are widely known among the cognoscenti of new, experimental and esoteric music and film.

Many customers seek out the four Kim's outlets for recordings they are unable to find in even the largest music stores, and they often say they patronize the St. Marks Place store despite the attitude of its staff, which is not always welcoming.

"It was a rite of passage to go in there, rent a movie and get snobbed on by some disdainful clerk," said Mike Doughty, the former singer of the band Soul Coughing.

Veterans of the East Village arts scene said the store had a devoted clientele.

"They fill a niche," said Mike Stuto, an owner of Hi Fi, a bar on Avenue A. "It's the difference between a corner bodega and a special newsstand that carries every publication you can imagine, but may not have Time magazine."

[skinnytie]

No wonder I only saw 2 staff members there when I visited the place last Friday. [:)]

[ekahob]

While it's a great store, they are always playing really bad annoying music too loud. And yes the people who work there have attitudes. It's a only a CD store people, you're not saving lives.