Son of Raccoon Lodge? Neighbors Say No to Rebirth of Bar Near Them

Suellen Epstein, who lives at 9 Murray St., told the committee that residents in her building had been bothered by the former bar at 20 Warren St. and oppose The Lodge moving there. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

Regulars say they will sorely miss the Raccoon Lodge, the popular Tribeca bar at 59 Warren St. whose forced demise after 34 years comes at the end of June. But its resurrection, of sorts, proposed for a space less than two blocks away, will not happen if neighbors have their way.

On Wednesday they showed up in force at the meeting of Community Board 1’s Tribeca Committee to oppose a liquor license for The Lodge, a bar/restaurant at 20 Warren St. that its backers say will carry on the bar’s tradition as a “cultural institution” as well as retain much of its staff and management under new owners.

“We want to continue the same sense of community that the Raccoon engendered in all of these years,” said Richard Yellen, a lawyer and Lodge partner who presented the plan to the committee, in a room overflowing with opponents.

Unlike the Raccoon Lodge, whose building is being demolished along with five others for a condominium development, The Lodge will be a “gastro pub” that serves “high-end food,” Yellen said. But he insisted that the board’s usual policy of approving closing hours of 12 a.m. on weekdays and 1 a.m on weekends for establishments on side streets would not be viable for The Lodge.

“There’s no way, given the rents in Tribeca, that we can survive,” he said.  Though his application to the State Liquor Authority calls for operating 11:30 a.m. to 4 a.m., he said he was willing to compromise and close at 2 a.m.

But there was no appetite for compromise among the roomful of residents from buildings on Warren, Murray and Broadway who came with petitions in hand and determination to see that The Lodge never opens.

Many in the room recalled 20/20, a former complaint-ridden bar that long occupied the space. For Seth Haber, who lives next door at 22 Warren, that meant cigarette smoke wafting into his building far into the night from bar patrons congregating outside.

“There’s nothing you can do,” said Haber, who sat with his seven-month-old son. “The hot smoke will press into our building. It will press into our elevator shaft and into my apartment. It will go up the stairway.”

“We are doing you a huge favor,” he added. “Location is everything and this is a dud. This will fail.”

A woman who lives across the street at 19 Warren said she feared a repeat of the raucous behavior from 20/20 patrons.

“We live in Tribeca. It is a family-oriented place now,” she said. “It’s not a place where you have people out in the streets screaming and running around.”

“When a liquor license was granted for 20 Warren our building was a warehouse,” said Michael Cohen, the president of the board of 25 Murray Street, opposite 20 Warren. “There are now 52 children living with windows facing Warren Street and facing the bar.”

Yellen countered that The Lodge is not adding to the noise on Warren Street but replacing one bar with another. “We obviously have a lot of work to do to convince all the people in the room that we’re going to be good neighbors. We certainly intend to do that.”

No one was convinced.

“With this many people coming out in an organized fashion on a Wednesday night when it’s beautiful,” said committee member Marc Ameruso, “I find it impossible to vote in favor of the license.”

But outright opposition to the bar was tricky, because the board had approved a midnight and 1 a.m. license for Tara of Tribeca, a recent, short-lived establishment in the same space. And opposing it altogether also would run the risk of the SLA approving the application with no stipulations, such as an earlier closing time.

In the end the board hedged its bet, with a resolution that opposes the license but advises the SLA to limit the closing hours to midnight and 1 a.m. if it decides to approve the application.

Yellen declined to say whether he would accept those hours.

“We have other partners,” he said.