VIN News and Wicked Local
Attorney General Martha Coakley negotiated an agreement Wednesday with the operators of the Gordon and Alperin Butcher Shop in Newton for violating the Massachusetts Kosher Food Law.
According to Coakley’s office, Gordon and Alperin operator Golbos Inc. and its principal, Ricardo Bosich, advertised “Kosher Meat” when the shop was no longer certified as kosher from September 2008 to September 2009.
Bosich cooperated with the investigation, according to the attorney general’s office, and agreed to pay a $1,000 civil fine. Coakley’s office had filed an assurance of discontinuance in Suffolk Superior Court against Bosich and Golbos Inc.
Bosich said “there were certain issues” that led to him going without Kosher certification, but it did not affect the quality of his products.
Rabbi Rachmiel Liberman, with Congregation Lubavitch Synagogue in Brookline, was the primary author of the state’s kosher food law, which was signed into law by Gov. Michael Dukakis in 1990.
“It was our intent to protect the kosher consumer, just like any other consumer,” said Liberman.
He said that previous violations of the law have resulted in warnings, but this is the first time a fine has been levied for breaking the regulation.
The shop’s owner reapplied for kosher certification last month, according to Coakley’s office. Liberman isn’t sure if that will attract customers shopping for kosher products.
“I don’t know if people will trust him again or not,” said Liberman.
A letter from the Rabbinical Council of Massachusettes was released today:
“In the October 13, 2009 edition of the Boston Herald, an article appeared regarding the Massachusetts Attorney General fining Gordon and Alperin Butchers of Newton, MA for “advertising `Kosher Meat’ when the shop was no longer kosher certified.”
This is referring to the time period between September 2008 and August 2009 when Gordon and Alperin did not have any kosher supervision. Since the Rabbinical Council of Massachusetts has been giving supervision starting on September 2, 2009, there have been no violations of any kosher laws and the highest kosher standards have been maintained in the facility with a full time kosher supervisor present.
The article mentions that one of the violations had been that the proprietor advertised on his website as being under kosher supervision. In May 2009, we received a phone call from a consumer informing us that the Gordon and Alperin website had on it that the store was under the kosher supervision of the Rabbinical Council of Massachusetts. We immediately sent a letter directly to Ricardo Bosich, the owner, requesting that he remove the information from the website. Within a week, the website had been taken down.
We look forward to maintaining kosher supervision at Gordon and Alperin as it continues to provide Glatt kosher meat to the Greater Boston Jewish community.
Rabbi Saul Epstein
Rabbinical Council of Massachusetts
wondering where you live & how much you know…. kvh is a frum hechsher with frum mashgichim. synagogue council of MA is a separate entity which – true – we would not be a part of. & btw, do you know ricardo & that he sat in jail or is that hearsay? I live pretty close by & never heard that one! I am not saying everything was good there – how can we trust a place without a hechsher – but he’s not a bad guy – just ignorant of the importance of a hechsher – & true –… Read more »
This guy sat in Jail. I don’t know how the KVH could certify them. Most of the major hechsherim like OU or OK don’t accept the KVH. KVH is a division of the Synagogue Council of Mass. and also has Conservative Rabbis. The Rebbe warned us many years ago about not joining this org
the hechsher on herbert candies is WVH – Worcester Vaad Haair and is the hechsher of Rabbi Hershel Fogelman
1) KVH is Boston.
2) Halacha is halacha. Under those circumstances he must have supervision because if he is not frum he has no neemonus.
Even if he was honest he might not know that meat was snuck in, that something was substituted, that it came into contact with hot milk or cheese etc.
$1000 is a slap on the wrist for what he did which is consumer fraud even without the specific law. At least he made amends and is doing things right but it was only because of the law that he did what he should.
How does anyone know what meat he was selling. This is not Prepackaged meat it is cut up meat. It could come from anywhere. This owner is not Shomer Shabbos and at the same time he was also subletting the deli next door to him which was definately not kosher.
The butcher did not lie. He was kosher the whole time. He was selling the same meat without the hechsher that he had been selling with it. Just because he didn’t want to pay for a hechsher, did that magically make the meat treif?! He didn’t pretend to have a hashgocho. So why shouldn’t he tell the truth, that he sells kosher meat? If this Lubavitcher rabbi helped write a law that makes it a crime to tell the truth then he needs to do teshuvah, and maybe refund the $1000 that the butcher lost because of his wrong law.
I thought that hechsher was out of Worcester? Is there a different one out of Worcester? Is it the same one that’s on Hebert Candies’ boxes of chocolates? (Yum!)