Bad news for cocaine dealers: with less than a day left to apply, only a few dozen spots around town have submitted the necessary paperwork in order to stay open into the night on New Year's Eve. A new, earlier deadline and the State Liquor Authority's tightening the leash on which places they'll let stay open until 8 a.m. has led to only 39 bars filing for permits. Last year there were 400. And even among those 39, six have already been denied. Rob Bookman from the New York Nightlife Association thinks the new deadline is responsible, telling the Post, "It used to be that you didn't have to file until 10 days before New Year's Eve. There was no outreach besides the SLA's Web site, which no one reads." more ›

As if bottle service nightclubs wasn't fancy enough: amNY reports that City Councilwoman Melinda Katz is proposes that nightclubs should have waiters pour drinks for those with bottle service at nightclubs. Katz says this would be a way to keep people from drinking too much and underage drinking. Hmm, what about drink stealing? Or people buying drinks for others? And restaurants won't have to worry - this proposal would only affect nightclubs. more ›

If you're planning on going to a club for New Year's, you might want to go to clubs without charges against them. According to the Post, the State Liquor Authority is cracking down on city clubs that have charges pending and prohibiting them to stay open late. More than 40 clubs may be affected. Owners are upset to have the news dropped on them so late, since many clubs have been planning New Year's parties for a while - and the SLA even admits that they didn't notify the clubs that the policy would actually be enforced this year. On the other hand, it is a policy, so how much crying can operators do? more ›

Today, the City Council is having a "nightlife summit" to discuss bar and nightclub safety. Yesterday, the City Council introduced new bills that would require clubs to: 1) Install ID scanners and security cameras; 2) Give nightlife employees more training (safety and spotting drunk customers...) and 3) Hire monitors is laws are repeatedly broken at their venues. amNew York noted that the leglislation would have video recording "kept in a secure area and made available only for law enforcement purposes" and would be destroyed after 15 days, perhaps in an effort to stave off privacy concerns. The New York Nightlife Association says that only "bad operators should be required to install these cameras and I.D. scanners." But, after the deaths of Imette St. Guillen and Jennifer Moore, plus various fatal incidents involving bouncers and/or customer brawls (for instance, this past weekend there was a fatal fight in Staten Island), officials are eager to do something. The Post reports other things that will be discussed at the summit include "changing the current law that allows 16-year-olds to enter nightclubs, and banning bottle service, a trend that requires patrons to buy a minimum amount of liquor to get a seat at a club." more ›

One bar owner complains that pre-smoking ban, a person could drink and smoke at his bar for 6 hours. Now a person will drink for just (JUST) 4, and then smoke for 2 hours. Which might be an interesting twist in the smoking ban: You may be more sober at the end of the night, thus making less rash decisions to drunken dial that idiot who said he was going to call you after your last date but now it's been a week and where the hell is that phone call. You'll still be getting lung cancer, emphysema, and all other smoking-related illnesses, but hey, you only live once and you might as well have your dignity intact by not drunken dialing. more ›

Then, in EV and LES, residents are upset that laws are not enforcing the "oversaturation of bars" (which is a very curious concept to Gothamist). Apparently, the law says there cannot be more than three bars within 500 feet of each other or 200 feet from a school or church, so that must mean about 80% of the bars in Manhattan violate this rule. Many complaints involve noise and quality of life, but some are using the "we miss having the dingy bodega instead of the bar serving $15 cocktails" argument. Which makes how expensive it is to rent space in the area very interesting: According to one bar owner, ten years ago, it cost $14 per square foot; five years ago, $30 per square foot; and today, $80 per square foot. Talk about nails in the coffins are the mom & pop establishments. But maybe residents are just sick of incidents like this: Three men were fighting over a woman at Negril Village on West 3rd Street, and one was shot twice, another was stabbed five times, and the third had his head sliced open by the a bottle.
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