Fight Over Seating on West Broadway

 by Carl Glassman


Picture Tribeca's northern stretch of West Broadway, between Beach and White Streets, as a kind of Parisian boulevard lined with sidewalk cafes, where sophisticates quietly read and chat as they sip espressos and expertly chosen wines.

Michele Angerosi, new owner of Liquor Store Bar, sits near his establishment, which is scheduled to open this summer. He had requested five outdoor tables. Photo: Carl Glassman

Or, picture the same block bustling with obscenity-spewing, late-night boozers noisily crowding and cavorting around a nearly block-long string of outdoor tables.


Those were the conflicting images conjured before Community Board 1 last month when the owners of two neighboring establishments due to open in August, the Liquor Store Bar at 235 West Broadway and Cercle Rouge at 241West Broadway, faced resistance from White Street residents as the owners sought the board's approval for outdoor seating.

The residents prevailed in the end, citing what they said was an over saturation of bars and restaurants in the vicinity-31 liquor and beer-and-wine licenses within 500 feet of the two new businesses. There are two bars on the same block as the new establishments.
The residents' victory was a bruising defeat for the owners, who claimed to be the victims of capricious treatment and unfair prejudgment.

"I was in Paris that morning [of the community board meeting] and had a cafe at one of these tables, a croissant, an orange juice, and it was great," said Georges Forgeois, owner of Cercle Rouge and a native of southern France. "And then I come here and I'm treated like a criminal."

The proprietors and residents argued their cases twice last month, first before the Licensing Task Force of CB1's Tribeca Committee, and later at the monthly meeting of the full community board.

First up before the task force was Liquor Store Bar at the corner of White Street and West Broadway, which is expanding and reopening under new ownership after being closed for the past nine months.

Right away, owner Michele Angerosi said he was slashing his request for 16 tables and 49 seats on both sides of the bar down to five tables and 20 seats, on West Broadway only.

Angerosi said he intended to run "a beautiful place to spend the afternoon. Nice to have a coffee, a cappuccino. We will constantly clean so you won't see garbage out there."
Georges Forgeois at his French restaurant on West Broadway, to open in August. Photo: Carl Glassman
"It's not going to be a shot-and-beer crowd," added Bennett Orfaly, the man who will be providing prepared food for the establishment (and the owner of Cima on Greenwich and North Moore Streets). "I don't want to associate myself with that."
But seven White Street residents said that, having experienced years of late-night noise from the former Liquor Store Bar, they dreaded an end to the peace they had come to enjoy since the bar closed. (They are separately fighting the bar's liquor license application.)

Patricia Belfonte overlooks Liquor Store Bar from the fire escape of her apartment on White Street. Last month she spoke out against outdoor seating for the bar. Photo: Carl Glassman

"The previous owners had only 24 seats and it was unbearable," said Heidi Fasnacht.

"It's a privilege to have a sidewalk cafe and no establishment should have a sidewalk cafe until they've opened and proven themselves," said Peter Townsend, who lives across the street from the bar at 1 White Street.


The committee was uncharacteristically divided.

Tim Lannan called the reduced number of seats too many and argued that there was no reason to believe that the new patrons would be quieter than the old ones. "The crowd that used to be there is the crowd we know," he said.

Committee member Ralph Pepe disagreed. "It's a new set of circumstances, they are new people," he said. "We

will hear from everyone if it doesn't work out. Let's give them a chance."

The committee voted 5-3 to give Angerosi's Liquor Store Bar a chance. But the decision was reversed by the full board 19 days later when the residents argued their case again and a majority of the board voted to recommend denying the seats.

The board's position is taken into consideration by the city, which makes final decisions on sidewalk cafe license applications.

"I was shocked," said Angerosi, who vowed to pursue his application with the city despite the board's vote. "I'm going to try to do anything I can to get at least 20 seats outside. It's such a beautiful corner and I already put a lot of energy and money into the place."

"If they're good neighbors then by all means they should have an outdoor cafe because they care," said Patricia Belfonte, who had spoken out against the applications from both establishments. "But we don't know that yet."

The Licensing Task Force that earlier in the month had given its blessing to Angerosi for his tables then said no to the 13 tables and 30 seats requested by Forgeois for his Cercle Rouge.

"If you approve this you have now approved a corridor of outdoor cafes and destroyed our lives basically," said resident Janna Townsend.

It did not help Forgeois' case that he wanted to open his restaurant's double doors onto the sidewalk. But noting the many other bars and restaurants in the neighborhood with the privilege of open doors and outdoor seating, he could not understand why his establishment, with its $100,000-a-year chef from Lutece, should be treated differently. "It just makes no sense. It's not very consistent," said Forgeois, who also owns Cafe Noir in Soho. "They should decide on a guideline and say we give a sidewalk cafe or we don't."

But for the residents who see an incursion of bars and restaurants-and few other new businesses-near their homes, the question is: When is enough enough?

"At what point have we reached saturation, where the balance has not tipped in favor of one group or another," said Janna Townsend. "That's a planning issue."