The 163-year-old Brooklyn business has been ordered to pay a $400 fine for polluting the air with the smell of roasted coffee - and that has the owners steaming mad.

"There is nothing I can do to stop the smell of coffee," said Hy Chabbott, a co-owner of the roasting and distribution warehouse. "If the [city] continues to find these smells offensive, we're going to have to find another place to roast our coffee."

Responding to a complaint last June, a city Environmental Protection Department inspector visited the 19th St. shop and discovered "heavy coffee odors." With that, he issued a pollution code violation.

The coffee smell came from storage containers and not the roasting machines, which are designed specifically to control odors. Believing the company did nothing wrong, Gillies went to court to fight the summons.

On April 2, the response came from Administrative Law Judge Phyllis Roberts: Pay up.

Chabbott said he and his business partner must now decide whether they'll pay the fine, appeal the decision or move to New Jersey.

Officials at the Environmental Protection Department said the summons isn't meant to run Gillies and its 26 employees out of New York.

"We are not about driving people out of business," spokesman Charles Sturcken said. "We'll work with them so they can contain the fumes and not bother nearby residents."

Sturcken added that the city has issued hundreds of smell summonses to other establishments, including pizza parlors, Indian restaurants and a Krispy Kreme doughnut bakery.

But Chabbott says he is still trying to comprehend the logic behind the complaint - and the summons.

"If you live over a bakery, should it be fined and cited for an offensive smell?" he asked.

Originally published on April 23, 2003