[EVG file photo #goodtimes]
On Tuesday night, CB3's Transportation, Public Safety & Environment Committee meeting is addressing a topic of possible interest: the impact of bar density on public health.
This meeting notice via the EVG inbox explains...
At its September 2017 meeting, Community Board 3’s Transportation, Public Safety & Environment Committee will be investigating the link between alcohol outlet density (the number of alcohol serving establishments within a limited geographic area) and adverse effects on local public health and public safety.
The Committee’s primary focus will be on if existing data establishes such a link and, in the event such a link exists, if CB3 should take any future actions based upon the data (potentially with the State Liquor Authority, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and/or New York City’s incoming “night Mayor”).
To guide us through the discussion, the committee will hear presentations from Robert Pezzolesi, MPH, the Founding Director of the New York Alcohol Policy Alliance, and Professor Sigmund Shipp, Director of Hunter College’s undergraduate urban student program, along with two Hunter graduate students who recently authored a report on the link between alcohol outlet density and public health/public safety in an area of the Lower East Side that has a particularly high concentration of alcohol serving establishments.
In connection with the presentations, the Committee is interested in hearing from community members’ and organizations’ about their perceptions of any link (or lack thereof) between the number of alcohol serving establishments in your neighborhoods and declining or improving local health and safety conditions. Please join us.
While CB3 is seeking public input, keep in mind, per the notice: "The Committee will not be hearing complaints regarding individual businesses."
The meeting is Tuesday evening at 6:45, Downtown Art, 1st Floor Theater, 70 E. Fourth St. between Second Avenue and the Bowery.
I think they're going to run up against a wall with this. Even with all their evidence, what is the threshold for taking action? Will any of their findings point to a level of health impairment that is demonstrably higher than other parts of the city on a regular basis? It's a step, but I don't expect much to come out of this. Still, it's a process...
ReplyDeleteInteresting topic. I'll be there.
ReplyDeleteThey have to study this? We can attest to how bad it is for our health! It isn't just bars. Now the restaurants that serve booze are becoming bad neighbors. I am on 12th and had to call 311 on Raclette last night. They were having a private party and had their big windows wide open and the noise blasting out of that place was insane. You could hear it over on Avenue A.
ReplyDeleteWell the ratio of public barfing and bladder issues per block has gone up with the ratio of bars per block. A direct causal relationship. Case closed.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they need to formally study this to take action. I hope this means they are going to do something about what has happened in the area because of bar density. The East Village has always had bars and been a fun place to go out in but the number of bars has increased so much and you also have an influx of frat and sorority types who are only hear temporarily and party as loud as they want to.
ReplyDeleteIf CB3 would stop bars/restaurants from having open fronts and force them to use soundproofing materials inside their space, a large portion of our problems would be solved. And it's so easy to do. JUST DO IT.
ReplyDeleteIf the abundance of liquor licenses is affecting you negatively especially in terms of physical or emotional health come and tell your story. If they don't hear from us, nothing changes.
ReplyDeleteAs bar density increases, public health decreases. There. There's your study.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the previous poster who points out an easy solution would be to close the open fronts and require the spaces have proper soundproofing. If the owner of Raclette would keep the windows closed and install proper soundproofing the problem would be fixed. Same thing at Doublewide down the street and the bars on upper Avenue A. It might help, too, if the landlords got ticketed for having loud tenants. If we could get the landlords to come down in these tenants that would help.
ReplyDeleteI would suggest those that agree with soundproofing and closure of open facades as a very positive step to curbing the noise levels in the neighborhood should write whoever replaces Rosie Mendez's seat on the city council. We have to get our politicians working on our behalf, a regulation like that is very possible.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. CB3 created this problem by approving every bar that comes along.
ReplyDeleteOne "safety issue" I see from my window on the weekends (and sometimes earlier in the week) is people wandering into the street for cabs and especially Uber. There are so many drunk people trying to get somewhere that they leap frog over each other and get in the way of tons of metal on wheels that could kill them.
ReplyDeleteI agree with first commenter: What is the threshold for them to take any genuinely useful action? And, BTW, what might that action be?
ReplyDeleteThey're not going to strip SLA licenses from places that already have them. And they're NOT going to get rid of the bro's who are here from elsewhere (b/c the East Village is a "happening place").
Further, they're NOT going to get rid of the bro's who temporarily live here (in Icon/Croman owned type of buildings, esp. the ones with backyards & roofs designed for partying. Hey, there were literally fireworks being set off on the "party roof" next door to my building last weekend).
Nor can they get rid of the thousands of dorm residents here who seem to think they have a God-given right to drink to (and beyond) their limits.
And so many of the above-mentioned groups love to smoke weed right outside my window...
So, what's going to actually change? I can tell them right now that the health impact on ME is that my blood pressure is through the roof on the weekend nights, and that my lost sleep due to loud carousers is also not in my best health interest, and I really don't need the unavoidable amount of passive exposure I'm getting to marijuana smoke as I sit in my apartment.
Focusing on "health and safety" seems to me like trying to steer it to a conclusion that the concentration of bars has no impact, especially if they're focusing on data. Are they looking for an increase in residents' hospital visits to correlate with the number of bars. Even if they find one, how do they show causation. Health and safety isn't really the point. It's the obvious but somewhat nebulous deterioration of quality of life.
ReplyDeleteHope they'd consider mental and psychological health too.
ReplyDeleteIf this meeting about public health will be held again at the upper floors of the Public Hotel, won't be surprised if CB3 finds no link between bar density and public health.
Either way, CB3 is responsible for dishing out all the liquor licenses to these bars and "restaurants", will they admit and take accountability for it?
Another bs from CB3. What's its purpose again? Oh right, to function in the interest of bar owners, not the residents.
ReplyDeleteIf this goes on without any input from Beth Israel emergency room and the ambulance drivers you'll know it's a sham.
ReplyDeleteThey're investigating the wrong "issue." It should be an investigation about the "safety issue" of a high density of bars. If that were the issue being studied, they would find an overwhelming body of evidence that a high density of bars results in an above average or higher amount of crime.
ReplyDeleteALL the bars on Stanton Street between Essex and Allen Streets and Ludlow between E.Houston and and Rivington Street need to be denied liquoe license renewals. It is Bourbon Street in Manhattan thus needs to go.