Next Monday, the Village of Massapequa Park's Board of Trustees will hold a public hearing to consider a request by Butera's Restaurant owner Martin Butera to amend a covenant signed by the village and the owner of the Southgate Shopping Center.

The hearing will be held on March 2, at 8 pm in Village Hall.

"The purpose of the public hearing would be to get info from the public," said Village Administrator Merry Capobianco.

The covenant between the two parties specifies a maximum number of seats that the shopping center can have for all of its restaurants. Butera's restaurant is only permitted by the village to have 60 seats. It currently has 76. The total number of seats that the entire Southgate center is permitted to have is 235, but fire code restrictions allow for 325.

"What happened when the covenant was made on Nov. 1, 1988, there was some concern about parking," said Capobianco. "Therefore a declaration of covenant and restriction was entered into between the owner and the village."

Butera argues however that his family style restaurant, operates at hours when many of the stores in the shopping center are closed. "The majority of our business is done at night when most of the lot is vacant and most of the day businesses are closed," said Butera. "It affords us excellent parking at night."

Butera says that, although the addition of 13 restaurant seats isn't a considerable number, for his business it makes the difference between making a profit and closing shop. "It's really an unfair requirement," he said.

Linda Murphy, a resident of Bar Harbour and secretary for the civic association, said that many from the group intend to attend the public hearing in support of the restaurant owner's request. "Finally, it's something other than the strip malls. It's a very nice restaurant," said Murphy.

Capobianco noted that in 1988, when the covenant was entered into, that Butera's Restaurant wasn't even in business. "At the time there were three restaurants, now there are four," she said. Butera's Restaurant was opened in 1991.

But Butera argues that the owner of the shopping center, Melvin Kaplan, provides a service to the village, and so the village would be shortsighted to refuse the request. Currently, there is a 2-hour limit on much of the parking at the Southgate Shopping Center, much of which is used by seniors at the high school. "If he were to enforce this 2-hour limit, he would displace many of these students to side streets," said Butera, adding that if Kaplan were to do this, the village would have a greater problem with students parking on residential streets.

"We can accommodate the students, we can accommodate Edwards, and we can accommodate our businesses," he said. "We have responsible people on the village board, so I'm hopeful."