No it’s not the artist Christo covering a local building on 80th Street and Grand Avenue with aluminum cans. It’s a local beverage distributor battling the giant Pepsi Cola in a bizarre but all too real story. It seems Pepsi refuses to take back their cans of deposit returns from the Community Beverage. Since Pepsi refuses to take back the cans and pay Community Beverage, Matt Crescio, the owner, must keep the thousands of cans. The only place to store them is on the roof.

By law, Pepsi cannot refuse to take back their empty cans. According to Crescio, Pepsi contends that too many are being returned. However under the NYS Bottle Bill, you must take back the empties if you sell the product being sold, even if the customer didn’t buy it in your store. Crescio feels that Pepsi is doing this to make more money, plain and simple. He contacted the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to try and remedy the situation.

That was two months ago and DEC still says they are “working on it.” We phoned Pepsi Cola’s John Kurth, Director of Redemption but he did not return our calls. Meanwhile the cans keep piling up. This will be resolved and we suspect Pepsi will be forced to change their ways. In the meantime, send a message to Pepsi, BUY COKE!