[Photo from February]
The CB3/SLA Liquor Licensing Committee voted 6-1 tonight to deny high-profile restaurateurs Ken Friedman and April Bloomfield a license to open a cafe in the former San Loco space at 151 Avenue A.
According to a reader at the meeting, CB3 member Ariel Palitz cast the lone vote of support. (Also, we hear that Friedman and Bloomfield were not in attendance.)
Of course, all final decisions are up to the State Liquor Authority, so the two could take their case there. However, as Eater previously noted, Friedman and Bloomfield dropped plans for a wine bar on Bleecker Street in April 2012 after encountering some resistance from residents in Community Board 2's jurisdiction.
And some residents had concerns about their Avenue A proposal.
Updated 6:09 a.m.
BoweryBoogie has a report from the meeting here. Per BB: "There was staunch opposition to this application for fear of a bait-and-switch. There’s no kitchen and the food offered is a “light menu.” San Loco, in contrast, never 'celebrated' its drink offerings."
Updated 10:09 a.m.
Friedman tells Eater that they will not pursue the space any further.
We love the East Village and specifically Avenue A. But if we aren't wanted there, we get it. Unfortunately for those who think they've done a great thing by preventing another restaurant or bar from opening there, they will discover that the rent is too high for a barber shop or frozen yogurt store, so a bar or another taco shop will most likely take this space.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Ken Friedman and April Bloomfield eyeing the former San Loco space on Avenue A
More details about the new Avenue A project from Ken Friedman and April Bloomfield
26 comments:
Why should some disgruntled, unhappy and frustrated douche bag be granted all this power over who gets and doesn't get a liquor license. PS: I have no sponsors and can not be bought. I just think it's kind of anachronistic for an elderly, hapless individual to wield all this power.
Good. Can we have San Loco back now please?
We need to get rid of these sanctimonious douche bags now in charge of the CB 3. PS...I have lived down here for 37 years. All the bars operating on East 5th Street have made the neighborhood SAFER and made it possible for my roomie to walk home from her bartending job at 4:30 AM. Let's get rid of this sanctimonious Stetzer cry-baby. I'm thinking of running against that shrew! Would you vote for me?
Palitz needs to go. She states on her Facebook page that she is available to help people through the licensing process. We do not need any more bars.
this small minority of people that waste the ninth precinct time and resources trying to close every bar and restaurant should really look in the mirror every bullshit call you make takes policemen away from their job which is to protect a 68 yr old man walking home I actually feel sorry for you
The "block associations" consisting of 5-10 people aged 65+ who live in RENT CONTROLLED apartments are running our neighborhood. Tonight's CB3 meeting was a disgrace and a waste of time.
"We do not need any more bars."
Why do all the sanctimonious anti-bar people post anonymously?
Walter the shill, if you've ever actually spoken to someone at the 9th or any of the EMTs that work this neighborhood or the Beth Israel emergency staff, they will tell you that the majority of their time is not spent responding to noise complaints from residents, but to problems inside the bars from extremely drunk and disorderly people who get into fights, pass out, get robbed and so on. There is nothing about a bar that makes a neighborhood safer, only more filled with drunken asshole bros. why don't you actually ask a cop instead of making shit up so your real estate friends can keep the retail rents as high as possible at the expense of having a diverse retail climate that serves the residents. You think Plantworks isn't about to be a high end restaurant and was contributing to the crime in the neighborhood?
And if you had a fraction of a brain or were at all paying attention on the last 37 years instead of being a total dick you'd know that Stetzer isn't elected, she's a paid employee. Idiot.
Yea seriously. Bars make neighborhoods safer yeah ok Walter whatever you say LOL.
I would LOVE to see the East Village and Lower East Side be a bar-free zone. Not "no alcohol", just no bars. Restaurants selling alcohol.
D
@anon 11:09
Is this in fact true? Could you send a link or any other information that supports this. Is there any way to contact you. There's an email on the flyer in above picture. Get this information to us quickly.
@anon12:31 The people from E. 9th Street. Many of them own the buildings. They opposed this application for King Bee Restaurant which wanted a full liquor license and use of backyard.
These applicants were sooo unique. They said that this was their dream and that they fell in love with the block. My dream is that people like this will just get the frig outa here. They all say the same thing.
And no backyard use period. Not here not anywhere. Use of the backyard just destroys residents lives who face the back so why would you even try to force it down people's throats.
I particularly liked the part about how the one partner got her bridal veil right on the block and how they were working with the Lower Eastside Girls Club and Middle Church to donate food, cooking classes, etc. They had a letter from the church. The Community Board said it was not legal for a church to support a full liquor license. So the Lower Eastside Girls Club and Middle Church was in support of a full liquor license.
We don't need anymore cocktail lounges, restaurants, mixologists, chefs. They are killing and gentrifying us.
Walter...and, hey, Anons @ 11:13 & 12:31
...I'm one of the people from East 9th Street, turned up for that meeting, I don't live in a rent controlled apartment (but I don't own, either...my landlords do, though, and live in the building) and I don't want more bars in the neighborhood. We had plenty of bars -- neighborhood bars -- back when the only people going to those bars lived here. We also had a functioning neighborhood, with a variety of businesses. We've lost nearly all of them. What we lost has been replaced by Bourbon Street.
Actually, in fact, after wanting to visit New Orleans since I was a little kid, I finally went there last week. I walked down Bourbon Street. Frankly, I think it was quieter than this neighborhood.
Interesting that you think the proliferation of bars made things safer here. Personally, I think it was the long history of neighborhood associations of various kinds banding together and making things safer...sometimes one building or empty-lot-turned-garden at a time, sometimes a whole block. Remember Operation Pressurepoint? Under Koch? That was NOT the NYPD's idea. That was them co-opting what several block associations had organized amongst themselves, ad hoc watch groups who would flood the precinct with calls about dealing on the corners and force the precinct to have community meetings and hear what was going on.
"Bars make the neighborhood safer." I live in the EV above a bar which for 14 years has been operating on the weeks as a club.. (to my knowledge this is illegal without a cabaret license but somehow nothing seems to stop them). Not only is the music SO LOUD that my bed shakes like there's an airplane landing in my room til 4am, but it's caused numerous problems within the neighborhood. Every other week fights which spill out on to the street including one guy who was beaten with a bar stool on the street! Screaming on the street in front of bar/club, with drunken patrons attempting to kick the front door in (at buzzing all the buzzers at 3am) to get a hold of a girl who complained out her window at them, because they wanted to beat her up. Gangs of kids after the bar closes have a contest every week to run down the street and attempt to break the windows of cars with one hard hit to the window with their elbow or some other weapon. Calls, police reports filed do NOTHING to close this place. No wonder these neighbors don't want another bar, because the privilege nearly always seems to be abused and once they are there it's next to impossible to get them out. Yeah, I'm sure all the residents of my building feel a lot safer with the bars. Just go talk to the girl who filed the police report on them for trying to beat the door down to get at her, the same girl was also hit in the head with a beer bottle the last time she came downstairs to complain about the noise outside.
One last little snipe before slinking off, tail between legs, it's understandable.
Well, San Loco got priced out (despite their liquor license)and the community drove away a very viable application from someone who clearly appreciates the neighborhood. The people who opposed this may feel like they've won, but they'll probably end up with something even worse in the long term.
So places like Webster Hall, 13th Step are okay, but god forbid a place like the Spotted Pig or the Breslin wants to open up in the East Village.
"So places like Webster Hall, 13th Step are okay"
Ok, I call Strawman on that! Not even close to being true. Fortunately, Webster Hall does not have residental tenants living above it.
And Walter, you've been totally refuted. You lose.
Honestly, did the cranks from the Save Avenue A/cb3 research Boomfield's other businesses before deciding to blacklist the application? She's the real deal, serious about food and very unlikely to run the Jagermeister-Shots-Night kind of place we locals fear. If you really want to get your fuss on about this one, I'd suggest you rail about the potential menu prices, not the potential drunken brawls.
I can't STAND, that an EV Grieve "debate", EV Grieve, one of my favorite things on the internet, degenerates into the same, "You're an asshole", "no you're an asshole" routine that every sports opinion thread turns into. Why is EVERYTHING black and white?...Why cant there G-d forbid be, "I like this aspect, but not that?"
Hey, I love real emotions and anger, but, this drives me off of here.
OK
Time for MY OPINION!
I would welcome them over, another: JUICE BAR, YOGURT PLACE, ICE CREAM PLACE, 7-11,BANK, HOOKAH BAR/LOUNGE,
Cheap Taco place?..LOVE' "EM...
Nice restaurant?, ok by me
This is idiotic. It clearly was not a straight up bar concept with April Bloomfield behind it. Even if it were, the space is way to small to be raucous. And it seemed like they were looking to have reasonably-priced food options!
Thanks CB3...
I too HATE TOO many bars..BUT, WHAT'S TOO MANY?..Do we just get blindly MAD a a group, like we NEVER would at a GROUP of people?...ONE AT A TIME..INDIVIDUALIZE As a neighbor and a rooted man in the EV for decades, I own a bar, and am a great, responsible, law abiding tax paying businessman/neighbor, and I could give a fuck what ANY OF THE ANTI BAR people think..I feed my family, play by the rules, and am an integral part of my community...
Bring back the "rough walk out" and I guarantee you that smarmy little rich kid bar patrons will start behaving a lot more nicely on the streets!
Almost a third of emergency room visits are due to alcohol consumption, and that number is up 40% in the last five years. When you have so many bars there is no such thing as a responsible one, since there are so many bars in the city it's like an alcohol orgy.
Booze is killing our healthcare system, and now Bellevue's ER is overrun on the weekends with drunks ever since St Vincent's closed down. The number of injuries, deaths and diseases from alcohol is soaring.
Since when does every new establishment have the right to a full liquor license just so they can pay the rent? Since Bloomberg and the hedge funds took over the real estate market, that's when.
" I could give a fuck what ANY OF THE ANTI BAR people think"
And maybe that's why the bar opposition sees this as a black & white issue. If that's the opinion of one side why should I be open to any compromise on my side???
The theory that people who oppose more liquor licenses in the neighborhood are anti-bar is absurd. Ken's remarks are the usual threats people hear whenever the discussion of retail diversity comes up. He didn't attend the meeting and therefore didn't hear the reasons for the community board's decision, so the assumption that another bar will be the next tenant is the response of someone who is out of touch with the community. Perhaps the space will remain vacant as the landlord holds out for another applicant attempting to get a liquor license, but what makes Ken or the landlord believe that will be approved? Eventually the landlord will want to lease the space, so maybe the rent comes down a bit and something the neighborhood needs will move-in. If we just settle for the theory Ken espouses, then we will just be a neighborhood of bars, fro-yo shops etc., but if we don't fall prey to that arguement then maybe we will get something else. There are responsible landlords (albeit few), condo buildings, co-op buildings who don't feel the need to charge such ridiculous rents that all they can attract are nightlife establishments. Look at some of the buildings on lower Avenue A, where we have a gift shop, a bicycle shop, a book store, a magazine store etc. We have Jillery in a large space on the corner of Avenue B. So if we don't do anything, we will be stuck with the lesser of a few evils, but if we try and do something to promote retail diversity in our community, hey you never know what might happen.
Well the Bubble will have to BE POPPED on the monopolized controled limited market. There is a Monopoly going on. Gouging. Price fixing by one group.
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