Daily News from New York, New York • 331

BAT LY NEWS TUES1AY, APRIL 24, 1979 Kl Allstate accused ofredling in fire policies i ly integrated and located in the northern sections of Brooklyn." Map accompanies report a map accompanying the report identified the Brooklyn communities with under 602 Allstate policies as South Brooklyn, Sunset Park, Red Hook, Park Slope downtown Brooklyn, Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, Brownsville and East New York. The report said that the 22 northern ZIP code areas in which a majority of Brooklynites live had 4,700 Allstate policies, or 22 of the firm's total here. "Perhaps- this could be expected since southern Brooklyn has all six of Allstate's sales offices. Of the 536 policies non-renewed or canceled in Brooklyn in 1978, 422 were rejected due to excessive loss experience. northern Brooklyn, only 84 of the 4,700 policies were nonrenewed or canceled for any reason last year.

Clearly, a poor loss experience was not the reason for not doing more business in northern Brooklyn," it declared. Allstate challenged the civic group's report suggesting the firm redlines the northern area of Brooklyn on homeowner fire insurance policies. "The figures in the report of the South Brooklyn Against Insurance Discrimination group are totally distorted and misleading," said David Jackson, Allstate public relations manager. He said Allstate now insures 10.3 of the homeowner market in Brooklyn, and since 1976 its policies in force here have increased 30.6, twice the normal average increase in Allstate business in the' metropolitan New York region. "We do not redline in Brooklyn.

We do not redline in the State of New York," he said. 'State Sen. Thomas Bartosiewicz (D-Brooklyn), a leader in legislative efforts to correct redlining abuses, said the group's findings were similar to those reported to him in his own survey of insurance brokers. One broker, he said, charged that insurors redline via ZIP code, a practice which started in northern Brooklyn and now extends south to about Avenue H. By OWEN FITZGERALD Only 22 of all Brooklyn homeowner fire insurance policies of the Allstate Insurance Co.

are in the northern half of the borough, a Brooklyn anti-redlining organization said yesterday. The group, in a report entitled "Does Allstate Love All of Brooklyn?" said information based on postal ZIP code areas "showed that Allstate's insurance business was not evenly spread throughout Brooklyn." The group, called South Brooklyn Against Investment Discrimination with headquarters at 591 Third said in its report: "In 1978, Allstate had a total of 21,694 policies on one- to four-family homes in Brooklyn. They had an average of 602 homeowner policies in each of Brooklyn's 36 ZIP codes. Twenty-two ZIP codes had fewer than 602 policies and 14 had more. With the exception of Brooklyn Heights, an affluent area, the 22 ZIP codes with fewer than 602 policies are racial artin's closing oweiftown store By BOB KAPPSTATTER Citing declining sales, Martin's department store in Brooklyn's shopping district began closing its operations yesterday.

Considered a major blow to the Ful- toi 25 t'''7 uvfgi -J 4 1 i 4 ii mm 4 ton Street shopping district, already beset with problems from its halted mall project, the store's closing marked the. end of a 70-year commitment to the area. There were reports, however, that Alexander's department store was eying the six-story building at the corner of Bridge St. as a possible site for one of its stores. Sources said Alexander's executive Robin Farkas and Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Peter Soloman have already discussed the possibility.

Neither was available for comment yesterday. Tried to form union Two hundred fifty employes of Martin's, recently involved in union organizing activity, will be thrown out of work by the closing. Senior Vice President Murray Apf el-baum said the store chain intends to give every employe full severance pay. "We will try to place as many of them as we can," he said. His remark was an apparent reference to the gowing number of members of minority groups now shopping in the News photo by Ed Mohnan Fulton St.

shoppers get bad news from signs in Martin's windows yesterday. downtown district. He said, "I don't think that there are enough people coming to the area to buy the kind of merchandise Martin carries." A chain operation, Martin's also has several stores in Long Island and New Jersey. Stocked quality goods The store's image and its merchandise has been one of quality clothing and related merchanise. In an effort earlier this year to stem declining sales at the downtown store, Martin's began stocking lower-priced quality goods and initiated more budget sections.

That attempt obviously failed. One high-ranking official in Brooklyn Borough Hall took offense at Apfel-baum's remarks concerning the economic class of shopper on Fulton St. Politician blames store "Their problem was that they were not a full-service department store. They didn't carry any appliances and what-have-you. Obviously they couldn't survive," he said.

Meanwhile, shoppers were taking advantage of the store's going-out-of-business sale, with all merchandise marked down 25. Edward Cohen, a retired person, was standing -on a long line in the second-floor men's department waiting to pay for two sports jackets he had picked out. "I'm sort of disappointed," he said. "The only decent store now is Abraham and Straus, and if that should go. that would be the end of Fulton Street." "I had no idea they were going out of business," said "Sadie Nissman as she looked through the women's blouse department.

"I know they were changing the downtown area, but that should be for the best." She said she was referring to the proposed mall project, which would run for the entire stretch of the Fulton Street shopping district. That project has been held up for several months now, and the contractor is suing the city for $4 million in addi-. tipnal costs that he says were not figured into the original $8 million con- Seeknevi channel for antipouerty organizations are the Bensonhurst Renaissance Association, Order of the Sons of Italy, and the Family Consultation Center of Gravesend. The Rev. Ronald Marino, who heads the latter group, is also chairman of AMICO.

Urged non-renewal Last fall, Savitz had urged that the contracts with CIAO not be renewed because of alleged fiscal irregularities and nepotism on the part of CIAO's founder and director, Mary Sansone. Sansone saidthat since the time, her organization has made changes to meet the Koch administration's criticism of its operations, and submitted applications for new contracts. However, Savitz said there was no "substantive change" in CIAO. He rejected their proposals and recommended that the contracts should go to LIRA and AMICO. By JOHN TOSCANO The Koch-administration has decided to recommend that antipover-ty contracts totaling more than $1 million, which were formerly administered by the Congress of Italian-American Organizations (CIAO), should be awarded to two other organizations.

CIAO officials are mounting a major fight to recover the contract and to avoid a confrontation, Mayor Koch has asked Deputy Mayor Philip Toia to act as a conciliator in the quarrel and try to persuade CIAO to join forces with one the new groups. CIAO, which had conducted the antipoverty programs almost exclusively for about eight years, failed last December to have them renewed by the Board of Estimate. Since then, they 'havh been operated by the Brooklyn Diocese, on a temporary basis. New contracts due New one-year contracts are due to be considered by the Board of Estimate on Thursday. The Human Resources Administration, which channels federal and state funds to the programs and oversees them, has recommended a $121,000 contract for a senior citizens program in lower Manhattan be gives to the Little Italy Restoration Association (LIRA).

The remainder of the contracts for several programs in Brooklyn would go to the American-Italian Coalition of Organizations (AMICO), with headquarters at 2322 E. Fourth St, Brooklyn. According to HRA Deputy Adminis-'trafor Reuven Savitt, AMICQ was form-ed 'last Among Jts member tracL i.r.