CB1 Tribeca Committee: The Unofficial Minutes

There was more on the agenda than Il Matto, which I recapped here.

1 WHITE STREET: LIQUOR-LICENSE ALTERATION
The restaurant—formerly called Nutopia, now apparently named Little One—coming to the old Columbine space wants to add a small bar to the second floor. (The one for downstairs was previously approved.) It’ll have just one (!) stool, because it’s mostly a space for overflow. The committee couldn’t recall what hours it had already approved, and the laywer insisted that the ones on this application were the same as before—1 a.m. weekdays, 1:30 a.m. weekends. If he was trying something sneaky, he blew it: The committee rarely sets closing hours on anything but the top of the hour, and a rat was smelled. Someone went and looked it up, and sure enough, the original hours were midnight and 1 a.m. With those hours, the second-floor bar was approved 7–0. Here are the menu and the floor plans:

61 READE: LIQUOR-LICENSE APPLICATION
This is for the space, next to Spaghetti Western, where a Chinese takeout joint was. The owner and manager previously worked at Mezza Luna in Manalapan, N.J., and the menu didn’t have a lot of surprises (pizza, classics pastas, chicken parm, veal piccata, etc.). The bar has only five stools and is behind the pizza oven, but the committee had concerns about noise, even though the closing hours requested were 11 p.m. and midnight. Eventually it passed. The menu:

339 GREENWICH (SARABETH’S TRIBECA): SIDEWALK-SEATING PERMIT
What with the various delays, the restaurant was required to refile its request for 14 tables with 30 seats. It passed 6-0-1 (the chair recused himself because Sarabeth’s is a client of his company).

34 WHITE (PETRARCA): SIDEWALK-SEATING PERMIT
No changes from the restaurant’s past permit. Passed unanimously.

From left: Sazon's lawyer and owner

105 READE (SAZÓN): DISCUSSION REGARDING REQUEST FOR CHANGE IN HOURS AND MUSIC
The short version: In order to stay in business, claimed the lawyer, Sazón must be allowed to have live music in its downstairs room, what with music being an important part of the Puerto Rican dining experience. (Sazón also hoped for a 4 a.m. closing on weekends, but that was quickly withdrawn.) Neighbors had many examples of how the restaurant has flouted the rules in the past, such as having DJs, bands, and dancing, even though those were never approved, and leaving the windows open well past the previously-agreed-upon 7 p.m. (The long version has lots of finger pointing, demurrals, and lawyertalk.) The chair said that if Sazón wants new freedoms, it had better behave first—it was like reprimanding a teenager—and when the lawyer kept trying to speak even though the chair had closed the discussion, yelling ensued.

NOT ON THE AGENDA BUT DISCUSSED ANYWAY
• What can be done about the Department of Buildings cars using every available spot downtown? There was talk about getting a DOB rep in to explain its (non?) policy.
• A CB1 member expressed concern about food trucks—such as the Frites ‘N’ Meats one that recently exploded—being “roving firebombs” that are parking right outside our schools. He said he had spoken to the NYFD, and the FNM truck had “more than one propane tank” and containers of gasoline, which if true, would have been illegal.

 

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