If you've driven down Bellmore Avenue within the last few months, you've probably seen Joan's GF Great Bakes ... or, rather, what used to be Joan's GF Great Bakes, as its doors are now permanently locked and its windows completely boarded over with huge sheets of plywood.

Great Bakes owner Joan Popkin, whose bakery specializes in gluten-free items, said that a terrible fire closed her doors back in July 2011.

"The store was destroyed ... it was completely destroyed," she said. "The fire marshall said it was an electrical fire, either a faulty outlet or a coffee pot."

While Popkin had intended to reopen Great Bakes as quickly as possible, a dispute with her landlord ground those hopes to a halt.

"The landlord never repaired the building," she said. "He did nothing. Zero. He would have to answer why he didn’t do it.”

As a result, Popkin was forced to pick up and move the business out of Bellmore and to a new location in Freeport, leaving behind a burnt-out shell of a building that surrounding businesses are starting to grumble about.

Eddie, of GT Motor Cars, located right next door, feels that something should be done about the dilapidated former home of Great Bakes, as it currently constitutes an eyesore for the entire neighborhood.

"It's disgusting ... it looks like a ghetto," he said. "It doesn't matter what business opens up there, as long as something does. Another bakery would be nice, actually."

Current plans for the building, if any, remain unknown.

Bellmore Patch will regularly spotlight vacant commercial properties in effort to initiate a discussion within the community about alternative uses for these abandoned places. If you'd like to know more about a specific property, please comment below.