Buster's Garage, the embattled bar that nobody loved, lobbied community board 1 to transfer its liquor license to a new space on Leonard St. last night. The results were not pretty; the board voted 11-0 (with 1 abstention) to deny. A Curbed correspondent reports from the scene:
"The The CB 1 meeting yesterday was dramatic?tons of people showed up, impassioned speeches were made?but not suspenseful: it was clear from the outset that the CB would deny Buster's Garage the liquor license transfer it was seeking. The Buster's Garage team took the stage first. BG's owner and attorney argued that a new, liquor-serving Buster's Garage on Leonard Street would cause minimal unwanted noise on the block, because 1) almost the whole restaurant would be enclosed within the eponymous garage and 2) the gararge's sound-blocking doors would be shut during the late-evening hours."
After the jump, the shocking everybody-but-Buster-saw-it-coming response.
Our correspondent continues, "Both claims spurred CB members and audience members to call bullshit. They said that loud, drunken patrons would flood the sidewalk regardless of whether the restaurant was contained within the garage. And they ridiculed the BG owner's promise to close the garage doors early?the existing outpost of Buster's Garage apparently keeps its garage doors open very late. Beyond the noise issue, residents voiced concern about Buster's-induced automobile traffic (on the street) and pedestrian traffic (on the narrow sidewalk). While the CB formally permitted a handful of residents to speak against Buster's, most crowd members got their oppositon across in the form of heckles.
"At the end, 11 of the 12 CB members voted to deny the liquor license (the last member abstained, possibly because he was afraid to flat-out support the liquor license before that bloodthirsty crowd)."
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