Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Mets Can Bar Kosher Franks on Shabbat

The New York Mets can prevent a kosher food vendor from selling its wares on Shabbat, a federal judge ruled.

Judge Jack Weinstein of U.S. District Court in Brooklyn ruled Tuesday against Kosher Sports Inc. and ordered the Englewood, N.J., company to pay damages since it stopped paying its fees.

In his ruling, Weinstein said that Kosher Sports’ contract with the Mets did not give the company the right to sell concessions at all events, the New York Post reported. The judge did not deal with the issue of whether the stand was actually kosher if it sold products on Shabbat.

Kosher Sports, the owner of three stands at the Mets’ CitiField in Queens, signed a 10-year deal with the team in 2009, but it stopped paying its annual fees after the National League club refused to allow the stands to operate on the Sabbath.

The vendor launched its $1 million lawsuit two years ago, claiming that it had lost a half-million dollars in profits because its stands were not allowed to open on Friday nights and Saturday afternoons. Kosher Sports said it had received permission from kosher-certifying authorities to open the stands to sell food items on the Sabbath, but the rabbi who certifies the stands denied the claim.

The Post reported that a federal magistrate will iron out the details of how much the vendor owes the Mets and if the company will still have a contract with the team.

Kosher Sports’ stands at CitiField sell hot dogs, sausages, knishes, hamburgers, beer and other food.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.