Philly Man Pulls NY-Only Crime

Sarah and I always wonder how the video store near her apartment stays in business. The Hollywood Video down the street closed a long time ago, the West Coast Video location on 15th was last seen hosting a Scientology anti-psychiatry exhibit, nobody under 40 rents videos, et cetera.

Not everyone just downloads movies or catches them on TV, I know, but video stores are on the long road to extinction. Some owners might get desperate, like the FBI says one Philadelphia man allegedly did. Philly’s own Farid Gilani owned the recently-closed Flik’s Video in New York, and he’s in a bit of a pickle:

Mr. Gilani, 54, lives in Philadelphia. He has been charged with trademark counterfeiting in the second degree (manufacturing, distributing or selling goods with a retail value of more than $1,000 that bear a trademark the defendant knows to be counterfeit) and failure to disclose the origin of a recording in the first degree (involving at least 100 unauthorized audiovisual recordings). Both are felonies. [...]

Mr. Flicker, 38, who lives on the Upper West Side, said he had not filed any formal complaints, though he had followed the breakup of Flik’s. “I bumped into a guy who worked at the store,” Mr. Flicker said. “He told me he kind of thought they were using duplicate DVDs. He told me in the middle of the night he sold all his inventory to another video store in the city. Isn’t that amazing? Only in New York.”

Bootleg DVDs? Shady late-night business deals? Yes, yes: Only in New York! Whew.

A Shuttered Video Store, With Troubles Still Brewing [City Room]
Image by John Manoogian III, Creative Commons license