________ Franklin square/elmont _______
SPRING FORWARD at 2 a.m. on Sunday. Remember to change your smoke detector batteries.
HERALD Infections as of March 8
CoMMuNIty uPDAtE
7,423
Elmont man starts a gym
Hats for Black History Month
7,296
Page 13
Page 23
Infections as of March 1
$1.00
MARCH 11 - 17, 2021
Vol. 23 No. 11
Town proposes vaping law Elmont mom lobbied for change instead of what is easy.” The legislation would prohibit the sale of e-cigarette or vapTif fany Capers marched ing products within 1,000 feet of down to the Town of Hemp- a school, playground or park, stead’s tax office a year and a and would change the town’s half ago, when then Receiver of zoning laws to restrict these Taxes Donald Clavin had just businesses to light manufacturbeen elected town supervisor, to ing or industrial zones. show him how vape shops were “They’re putting them near targeting teenagers with their these schools for a reason, folks,” a dv e r t i s e m e n t s Clavin said of the and to express her vape shops, noting concer n with a that they could be shop that had found near many opened across the of the town’s 36 street from Elmont high schools. Memorial High “They’re targeting School. these areas beClavin’s staf f cause they want to spent over a year get them hooked on collaborating with DAVE NEuBERt this stuff very, very Capers on the young, and this legissue, and on Mon- Medical director, Town islation is clearly day he announced of Hempstead going to take [them t h a t t h e To w n to] task and Board would enact address that.” legislation restricting where the If approved by the town board electronic cigarette stores could on Tuesday — after the Herald operate. went to press — the zoning “The Safer Routes legislation changes would be enacted next is what happens when local gov- Jan. 1, and two months earlier, ernment and the community on Oct. 31, the restrictions on work together to do something,” where vape shops could operate Capers, an Elmont mother, said would go into effect, Clavin said, at a news conference in front of at which point the Smoking Facthe Smoking Factory, on Elmont tory would have to cease operaRoad, adding that the measure tions. Not only is it across the was an “example of what hap- street from the Elmont High pens when you do what is right Continued on page 3
By MElIssA KoENIg mkoenig@liherald.com
t
hese are very dangerous nicotine delivery devices
Melissa Koenig/Herald
gEoRgE BlAttI, A former doctor from Rockville Centre, was escorted into the Nassau County Courthouse in Mineola on March 4. He was charged in the deaths of five of his patients.
Doctor charged with murder
Officials: Five patients overdosed on opioids By MElIssA KoENIg mkoenig@liherald.com
Geraldine Sabatasso was a smoker with a history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease who began seeing Franklin Square-based Dr. George Blatti in 2007 for acute pain she suffered as a result of a neck surgery. He started prescribing her opioids in 2010, and by February 2016, Nassau County prosecutors said, she started complaining of dizziness and
shortness of breath, but still, they allege, Blatti continued to prescribe Sabatasso, of Baldwin, opioids. She died on March 22, 2016, at age 50. Among the other four patients to die under Blatti’s watch were residents of Valley Stream, Hempstead and Floral Park, according to prosecutors. B l at t i p re s cribed the drugs from a number of locat i o n s, a u t h o r i t i e s s a i d , including an old Radio Shack in Franklin Square and the
parking lots of a hotel in Rockville Centre, where he lived at the time, and a nearby fast-food restaurant. Now Blatti, 75, originally from Malverne, faces murder and reckless endangerment charges for overprescribing opioids to Sabatasso and the four other victims, who died between 2016 and 2018, Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas announced on March 4. Blatti was charged with Continued on page 4