New Liquor Licenses in the Neighborhood: September 2023
This Tuesday (Sept. 26th), the Lower East Side's Community Board 3 met at a Full Board Meeting and voted to grant or upgrade 11 liquor licenses to businesses around the neighborhood.
Due to the Board's summer recess last month, applications that had survived August's and September's SLA Committee meetings were considered.
While EOTB's last report on liquor licenses happened right after the SLA committee met, we will now deliver this news after the Full Board meeting every month, since items approved at the committee level can always be changed or denied afterward. On Tuesday, this was indeed the case.
Only a couple applications received prolonged attention from board members, with FLA Group's full liquor license application to run a jazz club at 187 Orchard St. considered the most controversial.
A motion to vote on the item separately from the rest of the applications was quickly accepted by the committee, a sign of what was to come for Thomas Moore, the head of FLA Group as well as assistant general manager at Brooklyn's Baby's All Right club.
The proposed jazz club would take over a segment of Rockwood, the music club currently based at 187 Orchard, and run a separate establishment from there.
Thirty minutes of debate was followed by a modification of the item that would force the jazz club to close earlier and be run more like a restaurant than what was proposed in the application. Moore ultimately declined to accept the stipulations, meaning his application would not go forward.
It wasn't his first time facing rejection from Community Board 3, although this time he did get one step closer. Moore had previously applied and been rejected for a Chinatown nightclub at 5 Chatham Square that was not well received at an SLA Committee meeting in June.
Some other notable applications:
Kid A LLC, whose culinary director worked at Altro Paradiso at Hudson Square and Corner bar at Dimes Square, won a full liquor license at 9-10 Chatham Square
Vital Climbing Gym, in an unusual full liquor licens application , was granted the permit; this gym will be occupying a long vacant and frankly massive space at Essex Crossing (180 Broome St.)
VICTORIA!, a bar on Eldridge St. between Stanton and Houston, won extended hours on their full liquor license after having previously received pushback from nearby residents for their effort to extend their closing time from 2am to 4am
Cozy Café's (43 E 1st St.) rejection for a full liquor license at the SLA committee was upheld by the full committee
The monthly meeting took place at Essex Street's Anna Silver Elementary School (P.S. 020) in the auditorium, following the council's switch back to in-person meetings back in May.