••• “Tourists who buy knockoff handbags on Canal Street might escape without a year in jail. Councilwoman Margaret Chin is already backing off her push for tough penalties, including jail time, for the counterfeit shoppers in Chinatown, her chief of staff said Thursday. ‘We’re definitely getting some pushback,’ Jake Itzkowitz said just a few hours after Chin introduced her legislation in the City Council. ‘I think [the bill] may not stay in its current form. The year of jail time may change.'” (DNAinfo)

by Julie Shapiro (courtesy DNAinfo)

••• “Just days before a new restaurant opens its doors at South Street Seaport, its name and cuisine are still a mystery. The eatery, opening Monday at 189 Front Street, may serve meatballs, soul food, or modern Indian cuisine—but no one will know until Sunday, when the season finale of ‘America’s Next Great Restaurant’ airs on NBC.” (DNAinfo)

••• “Mona Muresan, 35, a Romanian beauty and owner of a popular Financial District steakhouse [Nebraska’s], is also catching fire on the female-bodybuilding circuit, winning seven state and national competitions since 2008.” (New York Post)

••• “A section of Broadway in Tribeca was closed Friday as investigators responded to a ‘structural issue’ at 372 Broadway. The building appeared to have moved, leaving a foot-wide gap between it and the adjoining one – though a neighbor said it had always been like that.” (DNAinfo)

••• “There will be a beer garden of some sort at Pier 17 this summer after all. Tom Fox, the owner of Water Taxi Beach, hoped to close his foundering Seaport location and have friend Telly Hatzigeorgiou take over the lease and open a new beer garden there. But after Community Board 1 rejected Hatzigeorgiou’s proposal, it’s back on Fox. It will open, but without the improvements Hatzigeorgiou was promising.” (Eater, distilling a Tribeca Trib article)

••• Matt Bernson’s sample sale was a zoo. (Racked)