Community Board 1 and a few Murray Street residents, including local dance instructors Suellen Epstein and Loretta Thomas, successfully chased off the latest iteration of Whiskey Bar slated for the Manhattan Proper location at its January meeting. After taking a beating for about a half hour, the owners ditched – saying if the neighborhood didn’t want them, they didn’t want to be here (well, at least at that address).

Whiskey Tribeca would have been seventh in a citywide chain that includes Whiskey Tavern on Baxter Street in Chinatown — all owned by brothers George and Justin Ruotolo and Rob Magill. Those joints stay open till 4, which is what the brothers were fighting for at this location. Community Board 1’s Licencing Committee’s standing policy is to only allow new establishments to open till 1a (with windows closed by 9p) — at least until they can prove they are good neighbors. The only bar on the block that goes till 2a is strip club New York Dolls — dba FlashDancers Downtown — which according to board members, has never received a complaint against them. Now there’s a good neighbor.

According to the brothers, Manhattan Proper (the state Liquor Authority lists the licensees as Michael Brown, Robert Zahn and William Strozier) will stay put. But the Whiskey said they are keeping their eyes on downtown. “We love it down here,” said George Ruotolo. “We’ll be back.”