A beloved bodega cat is back where he belongs a week after a thief snatched him from the store.
The cat, Boka, is actually a kitten. Majeed Albahri, owner of Green Olives Deli in Brooklyn, adopted the little guy in January and in seven months the all-gray feline has become a familiar face in the neighborhood, where people are used to seeing him sitting on Albahri’s shoulder as he works the register, or napping on the nearest convenient pile of newspapers.
Boka “brings life to the store,” Albahri said, noting people stop by just to give Boka a head scratch.
But on July 29 a guy “skulking around” outside the store took a liking to the neighborhood mascot and swooped him up. Albahri didn’t know what happened until he checked the store’s surveillance feeds and saw the thief in action.
Boka’s abduction mobilized an entire neighborhood, generated headlines in the New York papers, segments on local TV news and posts on neighborhood blogs. The thief must have felt the heat, because he contacted the deli through an intermediary and returned Boka to Albahri safe and sound.
On Aug. 5, exactly a week since Park Slope’s favorite feline was filched, Albahri posted online to share the good news.
“Best news I’ve heard all week,” one neighbor wrote, while another one posted: “Yes Boka! We missed you!”
Others urged Albahri to invest in some AirTags, the Apple-made locators that were designed for keys, phones and other easy-to-lose items, but have been repurposed by some as pet trackers.
For those unfamiliar with city life, particularly in New York, bodegas (Spanish for wine cellar or warehouse) are corner stores that stock grocery staples, snacks, and usually some sort of combination deli/salad bar. They also sell everything you’d find in a convenience store, from newspapers, magazines and gum to cigarettes and cigars.
Because there are very few grocery stores in New York, and because suburban-style grocery shopping isn’t an option for millions of people who don’t own cars, bodegas are essential in neighborhoods that would otherwise be “food deserts.” (Some sociologists consider such neighborhoods food deserts anyway, especially if the local stores don’t offer fresh produce, dairy and meat. Most bodegas do.)
Bodega cats occupy a legally precarious but widely loved position in the fabric of New York. They’re pets, but they also have primal jobs that call back to the original reason humans and felines began their partnership thousands of years ago: rodent control.
Technically they’re illegal according to the city’s Department of Health, but the New York Times estimates there are more than 10,000 bodega cats across all five boroughs. In a city that produces viral videos of rats dragging full slices of pizza down subway stairs, and rodents run rampant at night, bodega owners are faced with two choices: Accept the rodents and pay a fine, or get a cat and pay a fine, but have their stores free of rodents.
With the fines for rodent infestations and cats both around $300, bodega proprietors say the choice is easy, and cats have become ubiquitous. New Yorkers have created petitions to get the Department of Health to relax the rules on bodega cats, with no luck so far.
Pain In The Bud 
OMG!!! This is in my neighborhood. Best news ever!! Will go and see him and bring him gifts!!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Can you send us some photos if you get a chance, Gilda?
LikeLike
I am so sorry but i am a tech idiot. I will try my best or ask my friend to post some photos aa soon as i go to see Boka. My friend is a computer expert.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Anyone know why there are pictures of 2 DIFFERENT cats in this article? Ones grey the other brown tabby.
LikeLike
The top image is just a random bodega cat. I used that image because I need horizontally oriented photos of a minimum resolution for header images, and because photos from Pexels and Wikimedia Commons can be used under a Creative Commons license.
LikeLike
Cats are SUPER-clean animals. Whoever put the ‘No Cats in Bodegas’ law into effect ought to pick up a cat, and take a sniff. That person’s clothing likely doesn’t smell that good.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Exactly!! I do not care if a cat is in a store where i shop.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good point. Even after I give Buddy fish for his lunch or dinner, he doesn’t smell at all. I have never smelled any odor on him, ever.
LikeLiked by 1 person
A strange and/or offensive smell can be a sign of ill health. A healthy cat keeps itself clean, hence there’s no smell.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I didn’t mention it in the story because it’s only tangentially related, but there’s a movie called Vampires vs The Bronx that revolves around a trio of kids who hang out at their local bodega owned by their friend, Tony.
Tony has a bodega cat, who does not take kindly to the vampires. One of the vampires shows up looking for the kids and says to Tony: “What a lovely bodega you have here!”
Funny stuff.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Too bad. The petition was 6 years old, and closed, otherwise I would have signed it from “one of those square states in the middle”: Minnesota. (We’re not QUITE square.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
I imagine there’ll be news on that front, especially if the DoH goes after these guys for having a cat, which they probably will after all the attention. We’ve got people shoving each other off the subway platforms, murders in broad daylight and brazen gangs of thieves who treat every store like their own personal shopping sprees, but the city always has time and resources to harass people over petty stuff.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Some pos called Dept of Health few months ago on cat rescue group who shows cats up for adoption at a pet store in my neighborhood of Park Slope. Rescue group is getting license but is taking very long.
LikeLiked by 2 people
It is not thier fault. It is the people who call DOH on these people. I fixed a cat years ago for a sweet family nearby me. Muslims. Someone called DOH on them because at the time they were getting death threats because they were Muslims. They were born here and i happened to remember his dad having a cleaning business for clothes as a kid. Cat stayed in store.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Little towns have a similar approach to problem solving: 1. Ignore the problem and hope it goes away. 2. Reluctantly make the least possible effort and hope the problem goes away. 3. Announce all possible effort was made and the problem couldn’t be solved. Hope that’ll do it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Bodega storess sound amazin an furry necessary! An there iss nothin wrong with havin a Bodega Cat to watch an purrtect!!!
Wee are furry sorry sum IDIOT stole Boka an wee are furry happy Boka is back with Mistur Majeed…..hee sure has lovelee eyess!
BAN finess fore Bodega CATSS!!!
Wee love a *happy endin*!!!!!
**Hi-5’ss** BellaDharma an ❤ BellaSita Sistur
LikeLiked by 1 person
Years later I still miss the bodega near my old apartment, run by a Dominican guy who made the best sandwiches.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It s no wonder we have our cats keeping an eye on things! Smart MOVE!!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
We also had rescue cats in our hair salon best choice I ever did for business
LikeLiked by 1 person
Where are you located
LikeLike
Cat cafe, cat hair salon. Cats make every business better.
LikeLike