Listen, if you are hating on a bodega cat, you are not a real New Yorker.

Don’t just take that from me, but from Gary Mann, who flew in from Miami just this morning and headed straight for the SK Deli on Second Avenue for two New York staples: a bacon, egg and cheese, and a deli cat named Star. “I see this, and I know I’m home,” said Mann, quickly clarifying that he was talking as much about the white-pawed puss as the breakfast sandwich. “A deli cat is a great New York thing,” he said.

Mann didn’t know it when he got off the plane, but he was heading straight into the epicenter of today’s Gotham controversy, just hours after the news broke that an SK Deli customer had complained bitterly in a Yelp post. “To my dismay,” posted Diane D. and first reported by Patch.com, “there was a cat, perched upon some cases of Budweiser in the middle of the store!!”(nydailynews.com)…[+]