LIC fighting against more liquor licenses

If you want more bars, then go to jail, Long Island City resident Frank Canada said, during an oftentimes-heated Community Board 2 (CB 2) meeting on the application by Cullen Partners LLC for a liquor license for their new restaurant on Vernon Boulevard.
During the two-and-a-half hour meeting to discuss the application, area residents were split in support and opposition of the new eatery. In the end, CB 2 Committee voted a 3-3 split, and this recommendation was presented to the State Liquor Authority (SLA) on Tuesday, September 19 during a hearing on the issue.
As of Wednesday, September 20, the SLA had not released its decision on the application.
The new restaurant must get approval from the SLA for an exception to a 500-foot &#8220rule” on the books for the borough, which stipulates that three establishments licensed to dispense liquor within 500 feet of one another is the benchmark for a possible over-saturation of the area.
Currently there are six establishments on the strip - bars and restaurants with liquor licenses - within 500 feet of one another, and the Cullen Partners' restaurant would be the seventh.
&#8220Now is the time to draw the line. Granting an exception in this case is not in the public interest,” said William Garrett, a 16-year resident of the area who lives in L.I.C. with his wife and three daughters.
Local residents said that they worry about noise, smoke, traffic, parking, and raucous patrons - who, residents said, already swarm several neighborhood bars during the weekends and leave behind a mess the next day.
&#8220We now have more than enough bars here. I do not want [Vernon Boulevard] to become Bell Boulevard,” said Assemblymember Cathy Nolan.
However, Ira Meyerowitz, the lawyer for Cullen Partners LLC, said that his clients' intentions are to open an upscale Pan-Latin eatery - with a six-stool serving bar in the front.
With seating for between 60 and 65 people - and an estimated dinner crowd of two dozen - Meyerowitz said that the restaurant would be too small to create substantial problems for neighbors.
&#8220There will be no broken bottles, no fights, and no frat boys,” Meyerowitz said.
Roland Pedraza, one of the managing partners, promised to close the restaurant's doors by 1 a.m. on weekend nights, and said that the interior had already been soundproofed.
However, residents were particularly concerned about outside dining - whether music would be played outside of the restaurant, whether smoking could be controlled, and whether patrons would be quiet in the evenings.
&#8220Typically in this community, outside dining, outside gardens are a longstanding issue,” Board 2 Chairperson Joe Conley told the applicants, explaining that in the past, applications for liquor licenses have gone to the Committee eight times.
Pedraza said that the restaurant's owners hoped to open up the garden for outside dining during the spring and summer months.
&#8220There is going to be an enormous need for restaurants,” Meyerowitz told the crowd of 75 people last week, pointing out that within the next three years between 5,000 and 10,000 new residents are expected to move into the half-dozen new apartment buildings opening in the neighborhood.
Several local residents and local business owners, who spoke in favor of the new business, said that the neighborhood is also in desperate need of a supermarket, butcher, baker, bookstore, and hardware store, which might have been better received in the space on Vernon Boulevard now slated for the restaurant.