Bar Owners Fear Mayor Wants a City That Sleeps
February 7, 2004
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
He already took away their ashtrays. Now the owners of New
York City's bars and nightclubs fear that the mayor has a
secret plan to send the city to bed early.
So they are mobilizing once again, this time to defeat a
piece of legislation that does not formally exist. Mayor
Michael R. Bloomberg's administration has been working on a
plan to replace the city's antiquated cabaret license with
a general "nightlife license" for large, noisy clubs that
stay open past 1 a.m. But the club owners claim that the
real goal is to push the current 4 a.m. closing time to
much earlier for most bars, turning New York after dark
into Riyadh after noon.
"That's a distortion that some guy is out there feeding
everybody," Mr. Bloomberg said yesterday, as he found
himself defending legislation that was still being written,
although a six-page draft has been widely distributed.
"There's no bill that's been submitted yet. So this guy
who's pushing this is a little bit going overboard."
The guy in question is David Rabin, president of the New
York Nightlife Association, whose members are still
smarting from their failure to win any concessions on the
smoking ban that they say has crippled their businesses.
Mr. Rabin says the bar and club owners are united in their
opposition to this latest plan.
"Everyone from hoteliers to taxi companies to bars
understands what this means," he said. "There is no debate
in terms of whether this is any good for anyone's health."
He has begun to hold meetings with bar and club owners and
plans a full-court press. "If we have to, we are going to
show up with 5,000 people at City Hall."
Mr. Rabin, his lawyer and some other nightclub owners are
also spreading a claim that under the plan, most city bars
would have to close at 1 a.m. , essentially wiping out New
York City's fabled all-night party scene.
Oddly enough, the administration started on this path in an
attempt to get rid of something the nightlife industry
hates: the 78-year-old cabaret law, which requires a
license for any establishment that allows dancing. In the
past, bars have been padlocked when a few patrons were
caught swaying to a jukebox or a jazz singer, and the
Giuliani administration often used the law as a weapon
against clubs that had made themselves nuisances in other
ways. Under the draft Bloomberg proposal, the cabaret
license would be replaced with a more general license for
all bars, clubs and restaurants that can hold more than 70
patrons, that stay open past 1 a.m. and that are noisy.
The demise of the cabaret law would certainly be embraced
by some, especially the owners of small bars who resort to
flipping on Lite FM whenever police or consumer affairs
officials come by to see if there is dancing afoot. But
many nightlife denizens are in no mood to trust the
administration that drove smokers out into the cold, saying
the new law would have onerous effects. Bars and clubs that
choose to get a nightlife license could be required to pay
for soundproofing, owners say. Those that choose not to get
a license would have to close by 1 a.m., they insist, and
those that have their licenses revoked - which they argue
would happen more easily if the proposal became law - would
also end up with an early last call.
Under the plan, licensed establishments would indeed face
temporary or permanent padlocking if they did not obey
certain provisions. For instance, a license could be
revoked if there were more than one serious assault inside
the bar, and a bar could be closed for 10 days after three
sanitation violations.
"There is no question this is a de facto closing of bars
and clubs at 1 a.m.," said Robert Bookman, the lawyer for
the nightlife group, "because no one can withstand the
provisions of this law."
Bloomberg administration officials argue that the more
onerous provisions would affect only a minority of
businesses. Dina Improta, the spokeswoman for the
Department of Consumer Affairs, which enforces the cabaret
law, said the agency surveyed 15 restaurants, bars and
nightclubs and found that only one had noise levels at or
above 90 decibels, one of the three conditions under which
a nightlife license would be required. The noise level of
Manhattan restaurants ranges from 60 to 85 decibels.
But the administration might face a tough public relations
fight. Perception will mean everything, and the proposal is
complicated, said Adam Shore, a founder of Legalize Dancing
NYC, which wants to end the cabaret law but is concerned
about this proposal. "The New York Nightlife Association
can whittle it down to one phrase - '1 a.m.' - and the
entire industry is going to respond to that," he said.
And a fight with the nightlife industry is the last thing
that Mayor Bloomberg needs as he inches his way out of a
significant trench in opinion polls. Yesterday, on his
weekly radio show, he said the proposed legislation was
misunderstood.
"Now I don't think in this day and age we need dancing
police," he said. "Let's get serious. Who cares if you
dance? If you want to have a bar that has dancing, God
bless you.''
He said the city was also trying to respond to neighborhood
noise complaints. "You don't want lots of loud noise,'' he
said. "So what the proposal from our Consumer Affairs
Department is, if you're open after 1 in the morning, you
have to have a license."
The consumer affairs commissioner, Gretchen Dykstra, has
been making her own rounds to promote the proposed
legislation as good for neighborhoods concerned about noise
and for the bars that suffer under the cabaret law.
Many community groups are embracing a change. Anthony
Borelli, the district manager of Community Board 4 in
Manhattan, which covers Times Square, said it was an
important initative. "I believe if nightlife owners could
be encouraged to install soundproofing in order to prevent
disturbing their neighbors,'' he said, "that will be
helpful."
Even some bar owners have been won over. "I have been
hating the cabaret law for years," said Arthur Gregory, the
owner of a bar in Lower Manhattan. He said bars would be
able to stay open past 1 a.m. for a small fee, which has
not been officially discussed. "It comes out to like 30
cents a day. I went to the nightclub association meeting,
and they are just misinforming people."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/07/ny...e24db477500f0c
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