At CB1, Bouley Wins Fight For License

By Nick Pinto
POSTED APRIL 1, 2008

David Bouley will get a liquor license for his new restaurant after all, barring any new obstacles. Community Board 1 voted overwhelmingly to support a license for Brush Stroke, his planned Japanese restaurant at 109 West Broadway.

The vote came after CB1’s Tribeca Committee shot down his request for the second time in as many months early in March. At that meeting, Bouley’s opponents on the board argued that he was a bad neighbor, undeserving of another license.

At the full board meeting March 25, however, a long parade of Bouley’s supporters spoke in his defense, citing his local charitable work and donations and the business he brings to the neighborhood.

“David Bouley increases our real estate value because of what he has done in our neighborhood,” said Dana Sottile-Raymond.

“This is not just another restaurant, said Maria Nardone, “What David has created here in Tribeca is a center for culinary excellence.”

“It’s time to set aside the hyperbole and personal politics, put all of this in perspective, and look at the sum total benefit of him here in our neighborhood,” said Cynthia Vance Abrams.

One after another, the testimonials rolled in. Bouley himself was in Japan on business and did not attend the meeting.

Julie Nadel, who led the opposition to Bouley in the Tribeca Committee meeting, again painted a very different picture than the one presented by his supporters.

“You should know that there’s a dark side to these restaurants,” Nadel said, pointing to health code violations, idling black cars outside the restaurant, and newspaper reports of Bouley’s legal wrangling with his insurer after 9/11.

When the time for a vote came, however, only six of 39 voting members sided with Nadel, and the vote to recommend Bouley’s liquor license sailed to an easy passage.

It was a quiet ending to a fight that became heated at the committee meeting just a few weeks before. At that meeting, Bouley’s lawyer Warren Pesetsky called for Nadel to recuse herself, “because of her personal antagonism to Mr. Bouley.” [mp3 audio]

As soon as Pesetsky mentioned Nadel, however, committee chairwoman Carol De Saram cut him off immediately.

“I don’t like your choice of words describing a board member,” she said. “So far everything’s been nice. Let’s keep it that way.”

Moving on to some of the issues Nadel had raised in opposition to Bouley at the last month’s meeting, Pesetsky argued that some of them are beyond the board’s concern and irrelevant to his client’s request for a liquor license.

“This board should be about balancing the quality of life issues between residential interests and commercial interests,” Pesetsky said. “I don’t think anyone here can honestly say that any of Mr. Bouley’s restaurants have had an adverse impact on the quality of life or the sleep of any of the members of the community.”

Andy Neale was unmoved by Pesetsky’s presentation, however.

“There’s constant traffic problems because of black cars piling up outside of the restaurants,” he said. “There’s just a complete lack of respect for people who live in the district by Mr. Bouley and his staff.”

Nadel agreed, and said that the Community Board was simply fulfilling its proper role. [mp3 audio]

A different kind of obstacle to the restaurant presented itself the day after the meeting, when the Buildings Department issued a stop work order for  site of the proposed restaurant, citing a “failure to carry out demolition operations in a safe and proper manner,” after finding that a floor joist had been removed without providing shoring.

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