Life is going to be a real beach for some Ridgewood residents this summer.
Several Ridgewood residents at Wednesday’s Community Board 5 meeting in Middle Village spoke out against the Rockaway Brewing Company’s pop-up urban beach beer garden, La Playa NYC, which is set to open on June 4 at 176 Woodward Ave. on the Ridgewood/Bushwick border.
“We are opposing the pop-up beach and a liquor license,” said one resident who wished to remain anonymous. “We don’t want the noise that’s going to come with this, the traffic, the littering, the smoking and we have a lot of working people who work days and evenings in the neighborhood, the elderly, the physically sick.”
La Playa NYC is being billed as the city’s first pop-up urban beach beer garden and will ship in 140 cubic yards of Long Island sand and be fully decorated in a beach theme with beach chairs, sun umbrellas, a thatched palapa, beach volleyball courts and kiddie pools.
The pop-up beer garden will run from June 4 through September. It will operate Mondays through Thursdays from 5 p.m. to midnight, and from noon to midnight on Fridays through Sundays and will feature local talent including DJs, guest chefs, beer talks and special performances.
As a brewery, Rockaway Brewing Company is allowed to have five remote sites where they can conduct business, CB 5 Chairperson Vincent Arcuri said. However, Rockaway Brewing Company has not named 176 Woodward Ave. as one of those sites as of yet, he added.
According to CB 5 District Manager Gary Giordano, Rockaway Brewing Company has secured a two-year lease with the owners of the Woodward Avenue corner property.
“From what we know from [the Department of] City Planning, they can operate a commercial establishment at that location,” Giordano said. “They may need to get a cabaret license. We can chose to oppose their getting an alcoholic beverage license, but as far as a commercial enterprise goes, from what we’ve learned, they can do that at that location.”
QNS has reached out to Rockaway Brewing Company and is awaiting a response.
