For the @villagevoice, I wrote about the newly-appointed Nightlife Mayor's home turf, the East Village and Lower East Side, and the inherent difficulty of balancing dueling nightlife concerns in such a bar-heavy area https://t.co/ZxmJy69utO
— Allegra Hobbs (@AllegraEHobbs) April 2, 2018
Over at the Voice, Allegra Hobbs explores the challenges that Ariel Palitz, newly appointed senior executive director of the Office of Nightlife (aka Night Mayor), faces in her own neighborhood.
Palitz, an East Village resident, owned Sutra Lounge on First Avenue from 2004 to 2014. She also served on CB3's State Liquor Authority subcommittee from 2007 to 2014.
Hobbs speaks with residents and Block Association leaders who believe Palitz's appointment was a mistake.
Members of the Dwellers, North Avenue A, and the Orchard Street Block Associations all say that during her time on the community board, Palitz voted overwhelmingly in favor of new liquor license applications and brushed aside residents’ concerns in public meetings. (Community Board 3 declined to comment for this article and was unable to provide Palitz’s voting record.)
“They really couldn’t have made a worse choice, in my opinion,” says Pamela Yeh of the Orchard Street Block Association, which covers a swath of blocks below Delancey Street and between Allen and Clinton streets. “She voted in favor of just about passing every [liquor license] application that came through the SLA committee.”
Meanwhile, some of her former CB3 colleagues are more positive about the work that Palitz will do for the city.
“I am extremely happy that she got appointed — I think she is the perfect person for this job,” enthuses former board chair Anne Johnson, who says Palitz’s experience as a bar owner should allow her to effectively tackle the issues facing the Lower East Side and East Village. “I always found her to be reasonable and willing to listen to all sides and not just blanketly support one side or the other.”
Former community board member Chad Marlow, who has been a staunch supporter of limiting liquor licenses in the community, recalls Palitz as a voice of reason, attempting to bring “uniformity and clarity” to the process of supporting or denying liquor license applicants on the subcommittee. “I think [for] Ariel, her challenge is going to be to try and find a way to promote the interests of the industry while at the same time protecting the interests of the community, and I have no doubt she’s going to labor very hard to strike that balance,” he says.
Palitz declined requests for an interview with the Voice.