Alan Cumming (photo: Cassidy Dawn Graves)
A drag queen let me into Community Board 3’s State Liquor Authority licensing committee meeting on Monday night. Inside, she was joined by a bevy of others who came out in droves to support Club Cumming, actor Alan Cumming’s East Village bar that recently ran into trouble due to their liquor license lacking a stipulation to allow live music and DJs.
The Lower East Side is one step closer to getting a new art-house movie theater. Locals hailing from all walks of life, from the director of the social services organization Henry Street Settlement to the director of Winter’s Bone, spoke up in support of the Metrograph at a Community Board 3 meeting last night. Fashion designer Alexander Olch and his partners shared new details about the two-theater cinema and restaurant, and persuaded CB 3’s SLA Committee to unanimously support an application for a liquor license.
The State Liquor Authority Committee at Community Board 3 convened yesterday evening (Photo: Nicole Disser)
Members of Community Board 3 tried to block The Cock from moving to the former Lit Lounge space at a meeting last night. But Allan Mannarelli, owner of the gay dive, is going forward with his plans despite outcry from neighbors.
“If they think I’m going to stand and get abused they have another thing coming,” Mannarelli had texted us before going before CB 3’s SLA committee.
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Trash bar owner Aaron Pierce. Directly behind him on the right, resident of 63 Montrose Avenue, Jamie Slaper. (Photo: Jaime Cone)
The owner of Trash Bar, who recently announced his music venue will be closing its doors this spring, faced a wall of opposition against his proposed new bar at a meeting in Williamsburg last night. Though Aaron Pierce claimed his new venture would be a classy bar and restaurant, he wasn’t able to shake Trash Bar’s reputation as a drunken, divey free-for-all (delightful for patrons but frequently termed “a nightmare” by those who would be living near the proposed new establishment). His bar failed to get the support of CB1’s SLA Committee.
(Courtesy LES Dwellers)
Soho House made the case for a liquor license at their impending Lower East Side location, Ludlow House, at the State Liquor Authority in Harlem today, with the LES Dwellers and several Ludlow Street residents in attendance to oppose it. Ludlow House’s legal representation, Donald Bernstein, attempted to prove that Soho House’s cultural programs, responsible leadership, relatively low-key nightlife, and classy members who “won’t be puking on stoops” will be a public benefit to the neighborhood.
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