A man was fatally stabbed after a brawl with an employee outside a Bronx smoke shop, according to police sources.
The incident began around 12:30 pm Saturday at the Magic 7 Smoke Shop at 174 W. Fordham Rd., cops said.
A manager was carrying boxes outside when he bumped into Kenneth Fair, 59, who apparently thought the contact was deliberate, sources told The Post.
Fair, who was walking with a cane, then took a swing at the store manager, who has not been identified, sources said.
As the manager and Fair tussled, another smoke shop worker allegedly came from behind Fair, put him in a chokehold and stabbed Fair in the neck, police sources said.
One of the men then grabbed Fair’s cane and allegedly beat him with it before the workers went back inside the shop to call 911, the sources added.
The second worker, Vernon Gowdy, 54, was charged later Saturday with murder, manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon, police said.
Both Fair and Gowdy had rap sheets, sources said.
Gowdy is a former Parks Department employee who has been arrested more than 15 times and spent at least five years in prison in the 1990s, sources told The Post. He was arrested for exposing himself to a fellow Parks Dept. colleague in July 2011, police said at the time.
Gowdy was also arrested in 2001 for the July 1991 slaying of Anna McCoy, but the case wasn’t prosecuted because then-Bronx DA Robert Johnson said there wasn’t enough evidence.
Fair, who had no known address, was taken to St. Barnabas Hospital where he was pronounced dead, police said. He had a rap sheet that included more than 20 arrests, including for cases of assault and weapons possession, sources said.
The smoke shop manager, who has not been identified, and Gowdy were both initially arrested in their store but police said later Saturday that only Gowdy would be charged.
Police sources told The Post that the stabbing did not seem to involve self-defense, as in the case of NYC bodega owner Jose Alba, who was apparently stabbed while fending off and fatally slashing a violent ex-con who attacked him on July 1.
Tylique Miles, 41, who hangs out in the neighborhood and occasionally sweeps up at the local shops, identified to The Post the alleged stabber was an employee named Vernon.
Miles said he’s never seen violence like this in the neighborhood.
“It’s traumatizing,” he said. “We try to do everything we can to keep the area safe, but then something like this happens. We deal with a lot of addicts around here — Crystal meth, coke, everything.”
Radhames Rodriguez, president of the United Bodega Workers of America, arrived on the scene at 3 p.m. and said he’s worried about the amount of violence that continues to affect city convenience stores.
“It’s very dangerous out here. We’re seeing a lot of confrontations,” he said. “We’re already dealing COVID and inflation. All together, these things build up and people get angry. Its very unpredictable.”
Additional reporting by Maddie Panzer and Joe Marino