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Reports of Violence, Rowdiness at Peppers, a Leonard St. Club
“It was good to see the police out there,” Kerhajec said. “But aside from that, it was just another night at the club.” Neighbors have long complained about noise and rowdiness when patrons leave on Friday and Saturday nights around 4 a.m. But in recent months, two reported shootings outside the club have heightened concern. Amid the ongoing street construction, the crowds at the nearby Knitting Factory and a recently created warehouse for counterfeit handbags, residents on the block already have their share of headaches. But some say Peppers is the worst of all. “Three or four nights a week, when the club closes at 4 a.m., everyone spills out into the street,” said Joanne Greenbaum, of 81 Leonard St. “They’re yelling, fighting, and playing loud music from their car stereos.” Neighbors grew more alarmed when police reported that a man was shot in the arm on Broadway near the club. Two weeks later, residents claim, another man was shot outside the club, though police have no record of the incident. “It was a little after 4 a.m. when I heard the pop-pop sound of gunfire,” said a Broadway resident who asked not to be identified. “I went out on the street, and it seemed like a fight had taken place. The atmosphere was volatile.” Other onlookers told her there had been a shooting.
“We know we live in a city,” said Peter Braus, another resident of 81 Leonard St. “We don’t have the right to expect Scarsdale, but we do have the right not to have people vomiting, urinating and killing each other on our block,” The club draws predominantly black youth, but neighbors say their complaints have nothing to do with race. “Look, no one had any problem with the place when it was a Caribbean dinner club,” said another Broadway resident, who feared reprisal if her name were used. “That’s because we weren’t dealing with shootings, stabbings, and late-night noise when it was a Caribbean dinner club. Race isn’t the issue.” Police say they don’t have good communication with the club’s management, and since the violence and noise have all taken place outside the club, it is difficult to pressure the owners. “If they don’t want to talk to us, they don’t have to, unless we can find something illegal going on inside,” 1st Precinct Commander Anthony Bologna told residents at a recent meeting. Representatives of MHS Entertainment Corp., which owns Peppers, could not be reached for comment. The cell phone listed on the club’s liquor license documentation was out of service as of press time. Neighbors have also brought their complaints to Community Board 1, which voted in September to recommend denial of the club’s request to transfer its liquor license to a new company. “They brought us a request for a transfer, and we voted against it,” said Braus, a member of the board. “If they’d brought us a request to renew the license, we would have voted against that, too.” But after the board voted down the request for a transfer, the club owners sent an application to renew their license to the State Liquor Authority, attaching the postal receipt for the transfer application mailed to CB1. The State Liquor Authority hadn’t heard any objection from CB1 to a license renewal (because CB1 only knew about the transfer request), so the renewal was granted. Neighbors are furious. “It’s fraud,” said one of the Broadway residents. “They sent the board one thing and the SLA another.” Bill Crowly, a spokesman for the SLA, said last month that if his agency finds the club submitted false papers, it will revoke Peppers’ license. In the meantime, residents wish the police would be more proactive. “If we had police patrolling Leonard Street on Friday and Saturday nights, it could make a real difference to everyone around here,” Braus said.
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