The State Liquor Authority has taken the rare step of denying a liquor license to a Chinese restaurant on Second Avenue near East 91st Street because of the reckless conduct of its delivery men. Vicky's Cottage wanted to add wine and beer to its menu, but after local residents complained to Community Board 8 about its employees roaring around on electric bikes and riding on the sidewalk, the CB voted not to recommend a liquor license, and the SLA brought the hammer down. more ›

Considering how often we hear about Community Boards shooting down small bars, let alone huge ones, the fact that Community Board 12's Economic Development Committee just gave approval for a massive, 30,000-square-foot eatery in Washington Heights is a bit of a surprise. Whether it was a pleasant one, however, depends on your perspective. more ›

Your already very high chances of being able to sip a beer while watching the Nets in Brooklyn just got a little better. After the contentious two-and-a-half hour joint Community Boards 2 and 6 meeting on Tuesday night, the full Community Board 2 met last night and, according to The Local, approved the plan 33-0. With some stipulations, of course. more ›

Last night Community Boards 2 and 6 in Brooklyn held a joint meeting to discuss the liquor license for the Barclays Center over the Atlantic Yards. And, as with everything regarding the future home of the Nets, it was a long slog. The meeting took two-and-a-half hours and ended with little resolution—despite the fact that nobody seriously thinks the State Liquor Authority is going to reject the application. more ›

Raise a glass to the SLA's new interactive website, which features a map showing all the liquor licenses held by business owners in New York State, as well as all the pending liquor licenses and previous violations. The map, which also shows where churches and schools are located, lets users search active and pending licenses by address, company and business name. The FUTURE! Here's the link to the website, which is part of a major technology overhaul for the SLA, undertaken with $369,000 in funding secured by State Senator Daniel Squadron. more ›

Well, we hope it was fun while it lasted? The beleaguered Juliet Supperclub, currently closed amidst a legal dispute, may never again open its doors. Cue the tiny violins for all the big douchebags who loved it. The Real Deal reports that the club has chosen to withdraw a lawsuit it filed in an attempt to stop eviction proceedings started by its landlord. more ›

Neighborhood NIMBYs are about to get a new tool in their arsenal. DNAinfo reports that the New York State Liquor Authority is getting ready to launch an interactive map this month that will let you see what your local bars have been up to (along with any bar in the State). Better than having to file a FOIL-request just to find out if anyone else has been whining about that noisy bar on the block! more ›

One of the things that used to make New York City great is that all the bars stayed open until 4 a.m., so you could support your local businesses long after residents of other more provincial cities had tucked their dainty livers into bed. But more and more—and especially in Manhattan—2 a.m. is becoming the norm for last call, because local community boards are withholding liquor license approval unless barkeeps agree to shut down early. We've seen this happen all over the Lower East Side, the Meatpacking District, and Tribeca, and now Harlem is the latest part of town to demand veritably Bostonesque hours of operation. more ›

Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace! The Juliet Supper Club may not be long for this world. Police are still investigating, and have yet to make any arrests relating to, the shooting that took place at the celebrity-filled Chelsea club on Monday night and in the meantime it is closed indefinitely. And, possibly worse for the beleaguered hotspot, the State Liquor Authority is now investigating the club. considering there have been two deaths there since September, the SLA may well soon seal its fate with a righteous kiss. more ›

Tolerating the noise that spills out of bars and clubs is part of the city's social compact with its residents. We get to brag about living near fantastic amenities that we scream about to 911 every other week, and the restaurants pledge to "work with communities" by blasting Sean Paul and selling $2 jello shots between 12-2 a.m. But both the UWS and Inwood locations of Papasito Mexican Grill are drawing ire usually reserved for the "UNTZ-UNTZ" establishments. "I've been here 35 years, I've seen a lot of stuff come and go," UWS resident Kevin Krajick tells DNAinfo, "This is one of the worst things that's happened to the neighborhood." more ›

White Slab Palace, the cavernous Scandinavian bar and restaurant on a busy Delancey Street intersection, appears to have slung its last Aquavit: after suffering a series of NYPD and SLA-related setbacks earlier this summer, the space has shuttered for good. more ›

We've been following the story of Canz, the Long Island-based boobs-and-sports bar that's been poaching Hooters girls, with some curiosity for a while now. The latest curve in this strange trip involves the brand-new, CC Sabathia-blessed Murray Hill location, which opened last week with plenty of booze but apparently without a liquor license. more ›

Drinking during the movies is a longstanding, widely beloved practice dating back to the advent of movie theaters. Sadly, the SLA makes it hard to legally indulge in a tipple theater-side, which has forced generations of moviegoers to smuggle booze in with vulgar plastic water bottles. Until now! more ›

A Woodhaven church is reportedly squaring off against their hookah-and-booze-swilling neighbors, who are trying to keep the peace while simultaneously applying for a liquor license. But the owner of the hookah lounge says he's not sure what the brouhaha is all about. more ›

Last week the State Liquor Authority sent undercover agents to 212 bodegas and found that it's pretty sweet being underage in NYC, as plenty of stores don't card for alcohol. 123 bodegas, or 58 percent of those tested in the sting, had no problem slinging suds to whoever. But now, the busted bodega owners are crying foul, alleging that the SLA hasn't contacted them as required by law. "They are supposed to tell us right away," said one bodega owner in Bed-Stuy tells the Daily News, "I am going to fight this. I am going to court. I don't believe this." Believe it, buddy. But blame the media! more ›

The State Liquor Authority sent six men and women, ages 18 to 20, to over 200 New York City bodegas to attempt to buy booze—and, sure enough, at 123 locations, the underaged succeed. The Daily News has details on the three-day sting, "Of the bodegas visited by the SLA, the Bronx had the highest citation rate. Thirty-eight of the 48 stores - about 79% - sold alcohol to underage spies in the borough. Manhattan wasn't far behind with 75% of the bodegas selling to customers under the age of 21." more ›

We're just a few short months away from not being able to drink anywhere, ever on the Lower East Side. Last night around 10 p.m. White Slab Palace, which always struck us as being considerably more low-key than most of the neighborhood fare, even on the weekends, was shut down by the NYPD per a court order. But White Slab wasn't serving to minors, as other bars in the LES have done recently to spur the wrath of the SLA. It was closed for not having a liquor license a few months ago, despite owner Annika Sundvik receiving a permit in the interim, the Lo-Down reports. more ›

Five people ended up in the hospital with stab wounds in an early-morning brawl at a "notorious" Bay Ridge karaoke club that residents say is a regular old den of sin. more ›

A black market for homemade rice wine—those unmarked tubs of reddish liquid stacked up in the corner of your favorite dumpling shop?— is thriving in the depths of Chinatown, and authorities aren't quite sure what to do about it. more ›

The dark and funky hipster bar and music venue Coco 66 on Greenpoint Avenue was the scene of a dramatic raid last weekend, according to reports on New York Shitty and Paper. It seems owner David Kelleran has been operating without a liquor license, and local police tell New York Shitty that the precinct "did a joint operation Saturday with the State Liquor Authority... The owner was arrested and all the liquor was order destroyed by the SLA." According to one observer, $20,000 worth of precious, life-sustaining liquor was poured down the drain! more ›

Over the weekend we told how Culturefix, an arts space/boutique/bar on the Lower East Side, won a relative victory in court after it was targeted by the NYPD as part of the latter's recent bar blitz. And today the Lo-Down brings more to the story while pointing out an interesting wrinkle in the relationship between Community Boards and the State Liquor Authority. See, though Community Board 3's SLA committee recommended against renewing the bar's liquor license last week...it did so days after the license had already been renewed by the SLA, one of the bar's owners tells us. more ›

As if the ongoing bar closing blitz in the LES weren't enough to make a person start preparing their eulogies for Manhattan's nightlife, now comes word that Community Board 6, which includes Murray Hill, is trying to ban pub crawls altogether. Wait, that would be beyond their purview? That's okay, they've got ideas to get around that. more ›

The real prohibition didn't last, so it isn't that surprising that the prohibition party at the pop-up "experimental restaurant" What Happens When isn't lasting either. In the wake of the SLA's decision to strip the well-regarded restaurant's liquor license, chef and owner John Fraser has decided to simply shut the joint down after Saturday's service. more ›

We sure hope nobody in that teeming mass of humanity who went to Bryant Park to watch One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was drinking booze last night. Though for a hot second it looked like drinking was going to be allowed for movies in the park turns out it was never actually made legit. And it won't be. more ›