From the NY Times:Until early April, the Beatrice Inn was a busy nightclub in the basement of a residential building on quiet, cobbled West 12th Street in Manhattan. Since then, the club — a hangout for fashion, music and film insiders — has been silent: raided and shut down by the city, according to the official complaint, for overcrowding and “inadequate means of egress.” Shortly after, an angry message was posted on the front of the club: “The neighborhood wants this place closed permanently stay closed!!”
The closing followed a raft of community complaints dating 2007, said Jason Post, a spokesman for the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement, which was responsible for the raid.
They have won, for now: The club remains closed, Mr. Post said, and unaddressed problems include low ceilings, inadequate exits and staircases, and the lack of a sprinkler system and required permits. Mr. Piersanti estimated that such changes would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and city records show that the club owes $23,000 in fines and that the liquor license is up for renewal at the beginning of 2010.
Noise has come to dominate complaints to 311 since 2007, according to statistics on the NYC.gov Web site. “Last year 311 fielded over 300,000 noise complaints — the top complaint,” said John Feinblatt, the mayor’s criminal justice coordinator, when asked about relations between nightclubs and residents.
4 comments:
Come out to Queens. Set up your hooka pipes, your backyard Brazilian BBQs, sidewalks are there for your cafe's taking, put in little secrative dens with incomprehensible characters at the door (great for inspectors and firemen and the like), and noise?, hell, its part of the diverse! vibrant! scene.
These community groups are like the unabomber..they want the whole world to resemble a little cabin deep in the woods in Montana. Maybe that is where they all should go.
Maybe you should go there instead. Then you could make all the noise you want.
311 complaints are a joke. whenever someone blocks my drive way and i call the local precinct they refer me to the 311 hotline. 311 takes my complaint and the precinct has never sents a traffic cop by to ticket the car. never
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