Family of pizza guy convicted of abusing workers trying to sell Dorchester outlet but hopes to keep the Roslindale one

Lawyers for the Papantoniadis family, which owns Stash's in Dorchester and Bel Ave Pizza in Roslindale today asked the Boston Licensing Board to let it keep the food-serving licenses for the two places now that Stavros Papantoniadis is serving an 8 1/2-year federal sentence for beating, threatening, berating and underpaying his immigrant workers.

The family says it hopes to sell the Dorchester pizzeria, at Blue Hill Avenue and Columbia Road, to Artan Mertiri, who has been managing it since Papantoniadis was arrested and locked up in March, 2023. Papantoniadis's mother and wife want to retain ownership of the Roslindale pizza place, on Belgrade Avenue. On Jan. 2, they filed paperwork with the Secretary of State's office to remove their convicted felon from ownership.

At an "informational hearing" today on the status of the two pizza places' ownership and license renewals, the family's lawyers said neither Papantoniadis nor his family would receive any "beneficial interest" from the sale of the Dorchester restaurant - for which Mertiri has already put $50,000 in escrow - because all of the money would go to pay off two SBA loans Papantoniadis had taken out.

The lawyers did not specify the nature or amount of the loans. In addition to his June conviction on three counts of forced labor and three counts of attempted forced labor, Papantoniadis faces trial in a separate federal case on charges that he fraudulently obtained a $500,0000 SBA Covid-relief loan in 2021, ostensibly to help support the 18 alleged employees he had at a Randolph pizza place he had actually sold several months earlier.

Licensing-board members were skeptical, asking why they shouldn't just cancel the current licenses and let the family or Merteri file new applications once the sale goes through and the state approves the new corporate paperwork.

Members noted that Merteri checked "No" next to questions on 2025 license-renewal applications for the pizzerias asking whether anybody in ownership has been "has been subject to a federal or state criminal or civil judgment" for violating the Fair Labor Standards Act, and he filed the applications after Papantoniadis had been sentenced on Oct. 25 - more than four months after a federal jury in Boston convicted him.

The family's newly retained licensing attorney, Dennis Quilty, said Merteri may have simply checked all the boxes out of habit, thinking the forms were boilerplate and routine and maybe he was unaware he should look at the form more closely, or that maybe he was thinking of Papantoniadis's mother, Anastasia, who is president and 50% owner of the LLC that owns the place, and who was not charged with anything.

Board members said the form is in pretty simple English, though. Also: "It was all over the news," board Chairwoman Kathleen Joyce said. "People who weren't even involved in licensing were aware - it was already in the news."

Quilty continued that the family is hoping to keep the Roslindale restaurant open simply to support themselves, and hopes "the family does not get punished, if you will, for the activities of the one person." Papantoniadis's wife has been managing that pizza place.

The board took no action today. It typically holds separate meetings on Thursdays to decide what to do about hearings.