East Village resident Robert Halpern, a lawyer who has lived here for more than 30 years, is in the news after he sued the State Liquor Authority over a loophole in the 1999 law that allows bottomless brunches (drunk brunch, drunch, etc).
The Real Deal first had the story yesterday:
These weekend specials, where you pay a set price for unlimited alcohol during brunch hours, are prohibited by law, according to Halpern’s complaint, and they’re contributing to the “deterioration of the neighborhood.”
According to Halpern’s calculations, there are 679 active liquor licenses in the East Village alone, and the Liquor Authority keeps approving more. There were 305 new liquor licenses approved in the area in 2016, and 243 in 2017.
“There are too may people running around drinking all the time,” Halpern told The Real Deal. “It’s become more and more of a drinking culture here.”
From the Post:
“Anybody who has lived in this neighborhood for a while knows that it’s gotten out of whack. There’s no balance anymore in terms of people living here and people just deciding to have fun here,” he said.
The SLA has claimed that bottomless brunches — where customers pay a set amount for endless mimosas and Bloody Marys — are exempt from a rule prohibiting unlimited drinks because the “service of alcohol is incidental to the event.”
Halpern insists that’s nonsense.
“Alcoholic beverages are not ‘incidental’ to the bottomless brunches, they are intrinsic to them,” he said.
And the Daily News:
A Liquor Authority spokesman said that state law prohibited over-serving — even during bottomless brunch.
"Serving unlimited drinks is prohibited under the Alcoholic Beverage Control law, and instances of over serving by our licensees are aggressively investigated and prosecuted," SLA spokesman Bill Crowley said, adding that the law does provide for certain "special circumstances."
His complaint reportedly enumerates 17 bottomless brunches available in the East Village, including the Cloister Cafe on Ninth Street, Jeepney on First Avenue and Pardon My French on Avenue B.
26 comments:
Finally someone has gotten serious about combating the chaos brought to our neighborhood via the NY State Liquor Authority. Why has it taken this long? Who besides these bar/restaurants are benefitting from all of this?
Thank you, Mr. Halpern, and I hope you succeed! If there's a petition or anything, just tell me where to sign.
I'm so tired of living in a booze-ghetto. It shouldn't be this way, and it didn't used to be this way. We had far less of an issue back when Bowery "winos" were aplenty.
We need the SLA and NYC to recognize that dorms + bars = disaster. And disaster in the form of hollowed-out quality of life for most long-term residents of this area is exactly what we're experiencing. We might as well be some verdant college town in Anywheresville, where there are literally frat houses encouraging over-consumption of booze.
This neighborhood deserves better than the shit we keep getting shoveled on us.
*$&# the Real Deal's last bit in their coverage:
If Halpern does indeed have a legal case, that’s all the more reason to head to the East Village to feast on the free flow of alcohol before prohibition sets in.
All the state SLA cares about is getting the licensing money. The commissioners live in the Albany region, far from the chaos and insanity their wholesale rubber-stamping of liquor license requests engenders for the poor souls who actually have to live in booze-fueled playgrounds that used to be neighborhoods, so they really don't care what the results of their actions are, given that they personally are not impacted by them. Somehow, the law that anyone wanting a license in a 500-foot area in which there are already three existing ones having to prove that they will be offering a needed service has been turned on its head, and now it's up to the residents to try and prove that, contrary to what the license-seekers say, another bar serving booze to the masses is NOT needed. Unfortunately, that argument holds no water with the commissioners, who put out the welcome mat for applicants starting back in the 1990s, and who refuse to reign in the monster their greed created. I know it's easy to blame CB#3, but they are only advisory - in 99.99% of the cases where they have voted not to approve a license, the state SLA overrides them and grants it, and there is literally nothing they can do. And we're the ones who pay the price for that short-sighted greed.
Since when is brunch the issue when it comes to a rowdy EV? It's Friday and Saturday nights, not daytimes.
Fuck yes. I want to help with this. Balance is key. People should still be able to have fun and live it up, but for some of us, we don't want to co-exist in this shit show, on a weekly basis. Laws need to be in place. What is the EV becoming? The French Quarter in New Orleans during Mardi Gras? Every weekend. It has to stop. No more liquor licenses.
Of course no one is contemplating prohibition. I am a wine lover myself. But enough is enough. In addition to commenting at this great website, I encourage emailing me at (rnh141 at gmail dot com) regarding alcohol, noise, and other quality of life problems in the E.V.--Robert Halpern
This is fantastic news! it's hard to walk down Ave B on the weekends (especially between 4th and 2nd). Hope something comes of it!
Right On !
Rock on Mr. Halpern.
@7:38 AM Who besides the bars and restaurants are benefiting fom this? Many parties are benefitting:
1) Lets start with the landlords. By expanding the number of liquor licenses, landlords are able to charge more commercial rent and price out many businesses that don't sell alcohol. Landlords also use this nightlife to attract student renters, who turn over apartment leases faster, allowing for more rent increases and the eventual loss of more apartments from rent stabilization.
2) Liquor companies and distributors also profit from this expansion. Are these companies lobbying for more liquor licenses? Are politicians getting paid off to pressure the SLA to expand licenses? You bet they are.
3) The City and State tax coffers also benefit from increased food and alcohol sales. Beer and wine are hit with an excise tax at 26-30 cents per gallon in NYC. Hard liquor is taxed up to $1.67 per liter. In addition to the excise taxes, a general sales tax of 4% is charged on alcohol across the board. So perhaps the lawsuit needs to take into account how the city and state are profiteering off of the sale of alcohol at the public's expense.
Nobody is talking about prohibition here, but you have to be blind not to see how publicly traded corporations are conspiring with the government to crack down on sales of illegal drugs, while at the same time massively expanding the sale of alcohol and prescription drugs, especially opiates. This explains why is now harder to get a prescription for non-addictive treatements like pain patches than it is to get a prescription for addictive pain killing opiates. They want us all addicted, and their plan is working.
Wait until the city council approves dancing in places that play music which is the repeal of a long standing cabaret law from prohibition days. Apparently the city council and the mayor are in favor of repeal . I think duke Ellington s granddaughter is behind the move
Yes, thank you Mr. Halpern.
A Liquor Authority spokesman said that state law prohibited over-serving... Well how do you explain the drunks reeling around the EV yelling their lungs out at 3 in the am, Mr. State of New York Liquor Authority spokesman?!!! WHAT A LOAD OF IT. DOWN WITH THE STATE OF NEW YORK LIQUOR AUTHORITY!
I support Robert Halpern! How can I help!? Email me.
I've longed envisioned a suit against (the state) SLA for illegally allowing so many bars within 500 feet. It's the law. They haven't upheld it. It's time for the courts to decide.
Sounds like a good start to me. Next stop- the 500 foot rule.
i disagree 10:23am, Sunday afternoons get nuts with the results from the brunches.
Mr. Halpern, you are my new hero. As Eddie Lawrence, the Old Philosopher said, "Never give up, never give up, never give up ... that ship!" Please move forward in the knowledge that there are many like minds who are silent because we've given up complaining to cheap politicians, lazy NYPD and worthless 311. Crime statistics say crime is down in the East Village? OK, then when are these cops going to get out of their plush little SUVs and enforce the laws on the books? Any cop that comes back to the precinct at the end of the shift without citations for noise, overpouring and public drunkenness should explain why. And explain what the heck they were doing when they were NOT issuing those citations.
I will add one item to Giovanni's comprehensive list: The greedy politicans will soon be knocking on the doors of the bars they helped enrich. "Wouldn't you like to contribute to the campaign to show your appreciation for the extra money you've made?"
Thank you so much to the guy doing this. I wonder if my neighbors and I could file a lawsuit against a bar on our block for all the noise that emanates from the place. It is crazy and they get away with it. There appear to be no consequences for these establishments.
Another dirty little secret is that most of us are supposed to have accessible back yards, you known, that we can sit in for a bit of peace and quiet, and perhaps meet the neighbors. But these are getting as rare as Northern White Rhino, and don't expect the city to do anything about it...
CB3 Where are you?
At 4:33 PM, sophocles quoth:
Another dirty little secret is that most of us are supposed to have accessible back yards, you known, that we can sit in for a bit of peace and quiet, and perhaps meet the neighbors. But these are getting as rare as Northern White Rhino, and don't expect the city to do anything about it...
Well, my building has the trash cans out back instead of on the sidewalk—the better to avoid fines—and the part of the backyard that could be used for socializing has been blocked off by the residents of the duplex (read: frat) apartment in the back of the building for their personal party space.
Actually, there's your answer: any part of a building's yard that is designated as "common space" will be used for partying; this is why the management company of my building has taken the strongarm approach and dealt with the fratboys and -girls by installing surveillance and stating in a building-wide memo that anyone caught using the roof or fire escapes for recreational purposes will have their lease terminated.
Scuba Diva: The "common space" often becomes rentable commercial space. I didn't think of the partying problem, but I suppose management could limit or prohibit parties in the yards...
@ 4 PM: A lawsuit is probably the best way, if not the only way, after you get a DEP violation issued and the noise persists. Please contact me at rnh141@gmail.com. RH
The SLA doesn't care, unless they are issuing expensive licenses to new establishments.
So let's see how the liquor math works in this area. Let's put in a Dorm on 9th street between B & C (Old Cultural Center) and Fill it with 800 Collage kids and make sure we have more bars more Rooftop parties more drunk brunches and we all fall down plus 2 equal nightmare~
We need a place, an organization perhaps, around which we can organize or contribute to efforts to combat the madness of liquor saturation in our neighborhood!!
If we in the area who want to fix this situation were to merge resources, perhaps we could get something done.
How can we organize? Pitch in to hire a lawyer? Do we look at other communities, talk to those who have dealt with this kind of situation effectively in the past?
First we need a space to communicate, apart from this one.
Gojira
You are so, so wrong about the CB3 SLA Committee - time after time they approve things that should not be approved.
One of the amazing experiences was watching them approve a full liquor license for an establishment located within 200 feet of the Marble Church on Second Avenue when the owner of the establishment claimed it was not a church. Did not present any proof - just stated it - and they voted for a full OP.
Another wild vote was the approval of a 200AM weeknight closing hour for Ladybird on a street where nothing is open past 1100PM. The owner even gloated that he had gotten a great rental deal because of his prior experience - so it was not an economic issue.
If they really cared about the neighborhood these votes would not have occured.
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