"Community" Concerns Threaten South Street Water Taxi Beer Garden

The late South Street Seaport Water Taxi Beach (melmark44 's flickr).

Remember when it was announced that the South Street Seaport Water Taxi Beach was going to ditch the sand and reemerge as a German beer garden? Might not want to hold your breath. DNAinfo reports that Telly Hatzigeorgiou, who would be operating the "Pier Garten," has withdrawn his liquor license application for the Pier 17 space, "saying Community Board 1 had placed so many restrictions on him that he would not be able to operate the venue profitably."

What kind of restrictions? The board wanted the outdoor space to close nightly at 3 a.m. and stop playing music at midnight on weeknights and 1 a.m. on weekends. The restricted hours, and especially the music restrictions, "would make it difficult" for the space to "hold private events like weddings and corporate parties," according to Hatzigeorgiou.

Who exactly the neighbors by the South Street Seaport who are worried about noise are, we have no idea.

Anyway, all hope is not lost. CB1 still wants to work something out (something is, after all, better than nothing) and Hatzigeorgiou hasn't made any final decisions yet. "I'm not sure what we're doing at this point," he said. So, if you were waiting to get blitzed on German fare and beer by the water, you're going to have to wait awhile longer.

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By Garth Johnston in Food on April 27, 2011 3:23 PM

Comments [rss]

SPIBB

assHatzigeorgieu. This is just grandstanding to get his way. Nobody is in that neighborhood nearly that late anyway. They might as well just roll up the sidewalks and put them away for the night at 10pm.

randomtransplant

I don't THINK this is the best place for a beer garden but I KNOW glorified PTA's are not supposed to replace the role of city government.

They didn't have outright authority so they drowned him in petty noise. Thats some NIMBY bullshit right there. Bad business, new york. Bad business.

personagratin

Liquor licensing is handled by the state, not the city. And the state is free to "ignore" the advisory opinion of the Community Board.

randomtransplant

If only the entrepreneur were as free to ignore those who don't issue liquor licenses & don't write noise ordinances with the same abandon.

I'm sure the guy is a scumbag too - but would a city-wide, consistent standard of business be so bad?

schmeep

Given there is a lot of NYCHA housing in that neighborhood, you're talking about bothering thousands of people. The time constraints sound more than reasonable, unless there's something I'm not seeing.

Bernie_Geotz_Squirrel_Luv

I'm thinking it's more Southbridge Towers, lots of old people live there.

Eric Gordon

The Water Taxi Beach in LIC got a lot of grief from... the residents that lived across the East River. Not the people in the apartments in LIC, but the people that lived on the water on the other side of the river. I thought it was bullshit, but apparently sound travels pretty easily on a windless summer night.