On the evening of Tuesday, October 13, just three weeks before Election Day, the Dyker Heights Civic Association held a debate for local elected offices on this year’s ballot. It began with State Senator Andrew Gounardes and his Republican challenger, Vito Bruno. The differences between the two could not have been stark.
While Senator Gounardes used his opening remarks to detail his work with the Democratic majority on the most productive two years in state legislative history, including numerous bills he authored that were signed into law by the Governor, Mr. Bruno recounted his time “workin’ some of the greatest nightclubs ever,” where he “had the privilege of working with some of the greatest celebrities and awesome, major entertainers of all time.” Senator Gounardes provided detailed proposals as to how he would address pressing issues in the community, while Bruno’s only plan was to “solve problems and get the job done.”
People insert “you know” into their speech as a filler, when they do not know what they are going to say next. At the October 13 debate, Bruno spoke for less than 15 minutes total, saying “ya know” 45 times, 17 just in his two-minute closing remarks. He often did not seem to know what he wanted to say next. While Senator Gounardes stood and delivered all of his remarks and answers extemporaneously that night, Bruno sat, referring to prepared notes he would sort through and point at with a pen each time it was his turn to speak.
It was painfully clear that Bruno was uninformed, unqualified and seemingly uninterested in doing the necessary work and preparation to be state senator. People from all walks of life, professionally, can and should run for office, and our legislative bodies are better for it when they are filled with members from diverse backgrounds, but those with no direct, relevant experience need to exhibit that they are engaged in, passionate for, and informed about their community and the issues facing it, none of which applies to Bruno.
The issues page on Senator Gounardes’s campaign website covers 22 distinct topics. Bruno’s lists three. Senator Gounardes details the challenges related to each of those 22 issues, what he has already done to address them, and proposals to further deal with these matters. Bruno provides a list of complaints, followed by vague references to what he would like to undo.
When the topic of illegal home conversions came up at the debate, Bruno attempted to use that question to speak to one of his three issues: the “Affordability Crisis,” talking about the need for affordable housing. Perhaps, aware that his experience as a nightclub impresario hobnobbing with B-list celebrities is not the best qualification to become a state senator, Bruno looked to draw on the other line on his resume, as an architect after he graduated college. He suggested that the issue could be solved with an “architectural building solution.”
“I had the privilege of working with some of the greatest celebrities and awesome, major entertainers of all time.”
– Vito Bruno, 2020
“A new style of housing for these people,” he said, proposing “dormitory-style housing.” People struggling to pay their rent do not want to live in dorms. They want to create homes in decent housing that they can afford.
Bruno spent most of his speaking time at the debate on crime, which is one of the other three issues he says he is concerned about. Instead of offering any solutions, his platform is a list of complaints based on exaggerations, untruths, and fearmongering. It is an insult to the constituents of senate district 22 that Vito Bruno is declaring that he is the person to deal with crime, given his own history on the wrong side of the law.
In 1987, Bruno told SPIN magazine of his Club Inferno, “If we’d go through a night and no one got shot, that was a success.” The following year, his club 1018 in Chelsea saw 20 shootings.
Besides gun violence, Bruno’s clubs were a hotbed of illegal drug activity. He bragged to reporters about scoring drugs for celebrities. In Bob Woodward’s book about John Belushi, Bruno talked about Belushi’s overdose death and told Woodward, “We got two grams of coke and two black beauties for him [that night].”
“If we’d go through a night and no one got shot, that was a success.”
– Vito Bruno, 1987
In a 1983 New York Times report about an F.B.I. investigation into illegal activity at city nightclubs, Bruno boasted in an interview that he had given cash Christmas gifts to NYPD officers. Asked if those gifts were more than $100, he replied, ”Let’s just say a lot more.” Current laws limit any such gifts to $50. In 1983, $100 was equivalent to $261 today. It is safe to say that the “lot more” than $100 that Bruno was slipping to police officers in the 1980s when he managed crime-ridden clubs was a lot more illegal than the $50 maximum allowable today.
We cannot expect Vito Bruno to take crime in our community seriously after bragging for years about breaking the law, just as we cannot expect him to take COVID-19 seriously after he has been seen flouting public health mandates.
COVID-19 is the other issue of the three that Bruno lists on his website. He complains about the situation we find ourselves in and says we need to follow the science and find ways to reopen responsibly, all things that Senator Gounardes has advocated for and taken substantive steps to move forward. Bruno focuses almost entirely on the pandemic’s effects on the economy, offering no proposals on how to minimize the spread of the virus and keep constituents safe, and though he has stated he has always worn a mask and maintained social distancing while campaigning, most photos he has shared himself, show him maskless or with his face covering below his nose or chin and regularly getting up close and personal with those he meets, including seniors.
Bruno has only bothered to list three issues facing our community and has demonstrated that he is about the worst person to address each of them. He rejected multiple offers for subsequent debates, saying he did not have time. The people of the Southern Brooklyn neighborhoods in senate district 22 deserve someone who has the time to address their concerns. Vito Bruno has made clear he is not that person. This week is the time to ensure Senator Andrew Gounardes returns to Albany next year to keep advocating for our community.
