Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY - Discount Bus Companies Tangle Over Territory

Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY - The number of competitors to Greyhound Lines with inexpensive fares has soared in recent years, in fact, in the booming world of discount travel, there is apparently no room for two Hasidic-owned companies on the same route.

A dispute between the two bus companies that are vying for riders from New York to Washington, Vamoose and Washington Deluxe, has landed in court. As a result, some customers have been confused in recent days by Vamoose’s Web site, which first said the company was temporarily out of business, then said it was running again, but with fewer stops.

Vamoose and Washington Deluxe are owned by competing Hasidic entrepreneurs from Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Washington Deluxe, which predates Vamoose by two years, obtained a settlement from a rabbinical court in 2004 prohibiting Vamoose from operating on the same New York-to-Washington routes.
The religious court’s ruling was upheld in June by Justice Lawrence S. Knipel of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn. Andrew Citron, a lawyer for Washington Deluxe, said he served Vamoose with legal papers resulting from the justice’s ruling in mid-August, leading to the company’s recent temporary shutdown.

The service disruption led to “scores of e-mails from customers who were extremely distressed,” said Florence Bluzenstein, the wife of Vamoose’s owner, Sam Bluzenstein. She said that the legal dispute with Washington Deluxe remains unresolved, but that Vamoose has satisfied the court rulings by discontinuing service inside Washington.
But a representative from Washington Deluxe said, that they believe that Vamoose is still violating the court’s order by offering service anywhere in the Washington metropolitan area.