The newly established NYC Office of Nightlife has named its first director (aka Night Mayor) — Ariel Palitz.
Palitz is well-known in the East Village/Lower East Side as a bar owner (the former Sutra Lounge on First Avenue) and as a member of Community Board 3's Liquor Authority & Department of Consumer Affairs Licensing committee.
As The Lo-Down noted: "Her clashes with local residents fighting new liquor licenses were fairly legendary."
In recently years she has helmed Venue Advisors, "a full-service hospitality consulting company with integrated licensed real estate services."
Mayor de Blasio is to officially make her announcement official later today. Her official title is senior executive director of the Office of Nightlife.
Meanwhile, the Times has a very Times-ian feature with the news.
Since September, when Mayor Bill de Blasio announced he was forming an Office of Nightlife to promote the industry and soothe the strained relations between the city’s night spots and the neighborhoods that complain about their merriment, the local demimonde has been wondering who might nab the glamorous position. Would Mr. de Blasio appoint a modern-day Tex Guinan, someone who would quaff champagne in the small hours of the morning under the trapezes of the erotic circus scene?
In her first interview since accepting the post, Ms. Palitz suggested that her stint as the Nightlife Mayor would be slightly more sober and focus less on carousing than on conflict mediation. In today’s New York, gentrification has pitted partygoers against the settled residents of neighborhoods like the Lower East Side of Manhattan and Williamsburg in Brooklyn. In her first official act, Ms. Palitz promised to hold a series of listening tours and entertain the gripes of those who are bothered by the vomit on their streets or the noise at 3 a.m.
The article notes that Palitz is a fifth-generation New Yorker who has lived in the East Village since 1996.
And more from the Times...
Now in charge of a mayoral office with a 12-person advisory board, a $300,000 budget and a salary of $130,000 a year, Ms. Palitz seems to have realized that even a doyenne of New York night life must make a few concessions when joining city government. On her Tuesday evening drink, she was accompanied, for instance, by a minder from City Hall. While she admits that there were times in her career when she personified “what the no-bar movement rejected,” she also claimed that she has always tried “to find solutions that work for everyone.”
Previously on EV Grieve:
Ariel Palitz responds to Daily News article, 'ripe for picking' comment
ICYMI — Mayor forms Office of Nightlife
26 comments:
De Blasio is the biggest liar in the world.
When she craps on your plate, don't call the East Village and cry for us.
that's a pity. Palitz's bar had more noise complaints than almost any other and she sold up to shitty sports bar.
OMFG. She is probably the worst possible choice for this position. We should hold impeachment meetings for DeBlasio.
There's an interesting video of her floating around on youtube.
So happy to hear the fox is watching after the hens. Is anyone surprised our beloved Mayor would put such a hideous, pro-bar advocate in that needed spot? At least we now have a target for our complaint letter, phone calls, and emails. If you are disturbed by a nearby bar and it's post hours Uber horn honking, drunk fights, and early morning vomit be sure to hound her mercilessly.
Haha. It's going to be like the Trump administration. People will drop off like flies.
I think we should give her a chance. People behave one way when they own a bar, and another when they're overseeing an entire city's nightlife.
I cannot believe that the same Ariel Paltz who as a member of the SLA subcommittee never found a bar, restaurant application she didn't like is going to support residents complaints.
For those of you who joined me in the Mayor's Town Hall in October and heard DeBlasio promise us a neutral
candidate, I say "we wuz robbed"
So much for the Mayors promise at his EV town hall to appoint someone fair and neutral who doesn't have a financial interest in the nightlife industry. She runs a consulting firm that helps people get liquor licenses. As far as saying the EV was ripe for the picking, of course she said it. This is nothing compared to the stuff she spewed at CB meetings when residents dared express their concerns.
I posted a comment here in jest that she should run for it and be the Nightlife Mayor. And it happened. Eff me. EV was done. Now NYC is done.
She will hold town hall meetings along with $1 beer nights at the 13th step...
OUTRAGEOUS!
SEEMS DE BLASIO IS TRYING TO OUT-TRUMP TRUMP WITH HIS CHOICE OF THE LEAST QUALIFIED FOR THE JOB
WTF - BIG TIME!!!
APPALLING -- Just what our community needs--a bar owner who seems to lack empathy with our neighborhoods saturated with disruptive bars! It's amazing how this mayor has so little regard for preserving our communities.
I never heard of the "no-bar" movement. Does she mean the "no-bar on every corner" movement?
First order of business. Night Heron must be stopped his rampage of terror MUST END.
Having attended many board meetings, I can't imagine how she got this job. She was not a good listener, and didn't show any empathy. When she tried to be nice she came across fake like kellyanne conway does today.
"I think we should give her a chance. People behave one way when they own a bar, and another when they're overseeing an entire city's nightlife."
The same thing was said about Trump and his chip off the old block daughter. Still waiting for him to stop being Trump the hustler.
NYC is ripe for picking!
She was a bar owner while serving in the committee at CB3 that approved liquor licenses -- a conflict of interest obvs and def. More importantly, she is a failed bar owner. That is like appointing a General that lost every battle.
She was in Venue Advisors while on the CB, as well.
Another of the routine, endless examples of why people laugh at NYC local politics. DeeBlahZero would have to have worked hard to pick someone worse than Palitz. This will be a do-nothing office funded mostly by the tax payments of people, individual neighborhood residents, whose interests she will largely ignore. Classic pig at the trough appointment. In an era when most 'night life' businesses have become wildly over priced parodies of the type of establishments that actually earned NYC its reputation as a Mecca for hedonism, having a former bad actor low end bar owner run a government office completes the absurdity equation.
When she was on the CB she ran Venue Advisors with Paul Seres and she would advocate for him when he was seeking a license, like was the case with the DL. Well the SLA just revoked his license for another place he owned on the lower east side because amongst things people got knifed and slashed.
It isn't uncommon for bar owners to be on the Community Board. I guess everyone here just wanted a Night Mayor who would try to shut down NYC's nightlife. The point of this position is, in part, to help nightlife to thrive. It is modelled after what they do in London, which was a response to gentrification shutting down too many nightlife institutions, threatening their status as an international destination.
Nice work if you can get it.
There are of course bar owners on the CB, that's fair. Ms. Palitz has reputations though. She pushed for every applicant that applied, despite their credentials, behaviors, crimes or violations, that's unfair. People have greatly suffered, and everyone knows that.
She was also, as somebody pointed out, running Venue Advisors with Paul Seres, who recently had his license revoked. He also had another place on Avenue C for a while, which was shut down by DOB for illegal use and the SLA had him give up the license. He was also in the running for Night Mayor. Since the commercial areas have been rezoned for luxury residential development, nightlife has flooded into residential neighborhoods, and along with skyrocketing commercial rents, and carpetbaggers, it has caused a proliferation of nightlife, at the expense of residents and the neighborhoods of the Lower East Side and East Village. You can see her in action on video, and in various interviews over the years. de Blasio wants to rezone the commercial section of Bushwick. Even so though, what do rezoning commercial areas have in common with pushing through as many liquor licenses as possible? Displacement.
The applicant on the first two videos license was not renewed by the SLA, for multiple violations. The third video shows Ms. Palitz comforting the man who just charged a woman.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJiwbCSgK9U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5PCOL-6QnU
http://evgrieve.com/2013/09/reports-cb3-member-david-mcwater.html
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