Middle of the road

By Claude Solnik

Late last year, Sharaz Azim leapt into retail, peddling T-shirts at Huntington’s Walt Whitman Mall before moving operations to Lake Grove’s Smith Haven Mall. But shoppers won’t find his name on either mall directory. In both shopping centers, Azim snapped up some of the smallest retail real estate known to man: 25-square-foot kiosks occupying space between giants such as Express and the Gap. After working for other kiosk owners, Azim said, he decided to take the plunge himself. “It’s doing fairly well,” he said of his Smith Haven stand, filled with neatly folded T-shirts adorned with TV characters and logos. “The business has gone down over the years, but it’s still profitable.”

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