Friday, August 23, 2019
Vol. 79, No. 34
Syosset family launches new business with deck of playing cards
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Gaughran sees potential of LIRR service in TOB BY RIKKI MASSAND
Jason Mandel with son Carter, wife Carrie and daughter Madelyn. BY GARY SIMEONE It was on a whim earlier this year, that Jason Mandel and his family decided to launch their own business with a deck of playing cards. The game they concocted is called Let’s asQ, and it is a way to get to know people with carefully thought out questions and topics played without any set of rules. “We wanted to start a business and everything that goes along with it including conceiving an idea and designing, selling and advertising a product,” said Mandel, “As
a family, we wanted to learn something and create something together as a unit.” He said that his wife, Carrie, and their two children, daughter Madelyn and son Carter, put their heads together and came up with the idea of using a deck of playing cards as a trivia game. “As a family, over the years we’ve always enjoyed playing card games, so I thought why not put questions on the cards and make it like a trivia game,” said Mandel. “We started out with the concept of listing the questions with labels on the aces, kings and
queens and it just kind of took off from there.” Questions included things like what was a recent trip you’ve taken or what was the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen in your life. As a family unit, the Mandels learned about how to market their idea into a product, create an official company, register it with the county and state and obtain a sales tax license. They also learned about the fees included in starting a new business and how to compete amongst similar businesses. See page 15
New York State Senator Jim Gaughran, who represents the 5th District of Long Island’s North Shore, addressed the future of Long Island Rail Road service in Syosset and surrounding communities of Jericho, Plainview-Old Bethpage and Oyster Bay this summer. In an interview with the Syosset Advance and Jericho-Syosset News Journal in June, and again at a Town Hall at the Gold Coast Library July 30, Sen. Gaughran explained discussions held with Long Island Rail Road President Phillip Eng as well as conversations in Albany during budget season, plus an assurance from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. All signs point towards investing in linking LIRR stations along the North Shore, Nassau County to Suffolk County, according to the senator. “One of the things I have been trying to do is have the Long Island Rail Road improve service. Overall, our mass transit system isn’t working the way it should be working. A lot of people in Syosset use that LIRR station but the service has remained a point of frustration. We are trying to electrify LIRR’s Port Jefferson line all the way out to Port Jefferson, and the reason for that is the trains will run smoother -- with electric trains there will be train service more frequently. It will take the pressure off of ‘western’ stations like Syosset because the electrified stations end in Hun-
tington now. So a lot of people from Suffolk County are travelling (by car) to go to Syosset and they are filling up parking spaces there,” he said. Gaughran said at the state level, with adoption of New York’s new capital budget, included a change to allocate 10% for Mass Transit to the Long Island Rail Road and another 10% to Harlem and Hudson lines on Metro-North through Westchester to Putnam and Dutchess County, and in Rockland and Orange Counties. Originally all the state funding for transportation in the capital budget was slated for the MTA in New York City. “Our upstate and Hudson Valley colleagues fought as well. Most of the money is going to be generated by New York City but some people will be paying bridges and tunnels plus new congestion pricing in Manhattan,” he explained. Sen. Gaughran advised that Phillip Eng will get back to local officials and himself with an action plan “on how LIRR will use this capital money.” ”If we can make mass transit more accessible and convenient, also working with our municipal bus systems so people can actually connect -- some of us are spread out -- we will get people off the roads and onto buses and trains, into Manhattan or other parts of Long Island where they want to work, or just to go to theaters at night and come back See page 15
Syosset volunteer gets scholarship PAGE 6 Rotary welcomes guest speaker PAGE 2