Friday, March 25, 2011

Pub crawl ban brewing?

Town & Village reports this week that Community Board 6 — which serves the east side, from 14th Street to 59th Street with hot spots like Murray Hill and Stuy Town — will discuss a possible ban on pub crawls. (The meeting is set for next Thursday.)

The article isn't online, though Lux Living scanned in the piece...


(You can read it at Lux Living here.)

One CB6 rep said that pub crawls "may be a lot of fun for the revelers, but they're not a lot of fun for the community." And — duh! — the problem with crawls? They too often lead to heavy crowding ... "with the result of excess noise and vomiting in the streets due to binge drinking."

Perhaps CB3 will consider such a ban? Some bar owners may not like it, but residents would...Meanwhile, please feel free to defend pub crawls.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wonder how the ban can be enforced. Are the police supposed to look for crowds of drunks and what? arrest them? prevent them from going to more bars?

nygrump said...

When a stupifying, brain numbing drug like alcohol as the only allowed intoxicant, this is the result.

Stedman said...

I don't know how they'd enforce it. What's the difference of drinking with a pub crawl group and drinking with a group of friends? Couldn't a pub crawl group simply deny being on a pub crawl to avoid getting in trouble? They could say they're having a family reunion.

The responsibility of managing out-of-hand drinking has to belong to the folks pouring the drinks. They need to deny alcohol to those who appear extremely intoxicated.

EV Grieve said...

We should push for a rule banning more than 2 people entering a bar at the same time.

Seriously, though... this is all fine for local community boards to take up... But it has to start with some policy changes in Albany... and that will never happen.

Anonymous said...

New York City is breathing the silly gas.

Jenny said...

I agree with Stedman. Without determining what constitutes a pub crawl vs. a group of friends out drinking, it just seems like another way to harass people, at least people cops decide they don't like the looks of - just call them "pub crawlers!"

Anonymous said...

how about we just let grown ups drink.

period.

Anonymous said...

As absolutely disgusted as I am with these people, enough with the nanny state shit. All this banning in NYC is getting creepy.

Jeremy said...

I don't think this is really referring to going out with friends - moreso the organized pub crawls (like the St Patrick's day and Santacon ones) that have posters all over town. They wouldn't necessarily be banning bar crawls themselves, but would be banning people from advertising them.

blue glass said...

this is like trying to finish something without starting it first.
pub crawls are the result of the folks we hate banning together to get even louder and drunker and puke more. (think santacon or st. pat's day, or anyone's birthday)
the state sla needs to enforce rational decisions by local community boards - considering the number of bars on a block; the size of the bars; the nature of the bars (community and police complaints: underage drinking, noise, fighting, etc.); the overall number of bars in the area etc.
it is silly to try and stop pub crawls since it is possible for folks to gather and wander from bar to bar, behaving badly, without the "organized crawls".
one loud puking drunk looks the same as any other, no matters how old they are or what they are wearing.
a map of sla licenses for each cb would be a good start.

Anonymous said...

"They wouldn't necessarily be banning bar crawls themselves, but would be banning people from advertising them."

Sounds like a 1st Amendment free speech problem to me.

Marty Wombacher said...

I think any group of three or more people wearing the same T-shirt in public should be sent to a holding room at the 13th Step for an indefinite period of time. And if the aforementioned shirts bear the words, "Lordy, Lordy,____is Forty!" Well, they should be treated with extreme prejudice!

glamma said...

oh my god yes. please, Please, PLEASE BAN THE PUB CRAWLS!!!!!!!

Laura Goggin Photography said...

@Marty - you always bring a laugh to the table. Ha!

RyanAvenueA said...

I'll admit it. I went on an organized East Village pub crawl last month. It offered 11 craft beers (most ~8oz) and 11 apps at 11 bars for $25 dollars. Some were bars I had been to, some were not. It lasted from 1 to 6 and was surprisingly pleasant, save for my experience at 13th Step, where I sat down next to a woman who looked at me as I ate my chicken wing and said "You're eating a fucking cat."

But I did meet the owners of a bar everyone in the neighborhood hated even before it opened. We had a nice dialogue about what a shithole the bar scene was and how people think they are contributing to it.

Banning pub crawls seems a little like stepping on the freedom of assembly, maybe you should need a permit. The kind that never actually get approved.

Anonymous said...

@blue glass-- Absolutely, I think that banning the number of bars per block is essential. Just as an example, think of the area on Avenue A between 10th and 11th. By my count, there are three bars (Diablo Royale or whatever that place calls itself, Hi Fi, and Bar On A, four if you count Angels and Kings which is next door to BOA on 11th), two sidewalk cafes (Horus and that new place who's name I can't remember that used Orologio), and a restaurant (Westville) that all have liquor licenses. Really? Is it necessary to have one block with 6 places that serve liquor on it? When the CB board was approving Diablo, what was their thought process? "Gee, if these poor people who live on this block get a drink, where will they go." Obviously, these three to four bars on this block are not getting most of their business from locals; that would be impossible. At least Westville, New Orologio, and Horus serve something else besides liquor that the community can actually use. But what do we need with four bars in a 500 foot radius? (Oh, and if you go down the block on 11th St. there's also the 11st Bar, a place I actually like.) It seems to me that the key to limiting drunken douchey frat crowds in our neighborhood has less to do with banning pub crawls and everything to do with developing some sort of reasonable policy involving the number of bars in the area.

Anonymous said...

@RyanAvenueA

Someone who goes on pub crawls would shorten appetizers to "apps".

Leesy said...

Who the hell cares if you call them appetizers or apps?

This is absolutely absurd and so is every moron who thinks they can solve these problems with some random ban that's impossible to enforce. It must be exhausting to be so pissed off all the time.