West Broadway Bars Facing License Ban

By Carl Glassman

Michele Angerosi strolled toward the shiny silver cash register behind the bar and banged it with his fist. The cashless drawer shot open with a hollow ring.

"You know what they say," the bar owner declared. "A bar that is beautiful but empty is a museum. I don't care for a museum." Empty it is. Angerosi bought the 10-year-old Liquor Store Bar, at West Broadway and White Street, last March and he has yet to serve a single patron, even as the place gleams after a $250,000 renovation and expansion.

Angerosi's bid for a liquor license was opposed by several White Street residents at a State Liquor Authority (SLA) hearing last year, and turned down by the agency in December. Now, as he prepares an appeal and suffers what he says is a loss of $13,000 each month that his doors are shut, his troubles are spreading to other bar owners on the street.

Recently, the SLA notified three businesses on West Broadway that it is moving to revoke their liquor licenses. All four establishments are in the vicinity of Masjid al-Farah, a Sufi mosque in a nondescript two-story building at 245 West Broadway. According to the state's Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC) law, liquor licenses are prohibited for establishments that are on the same street and within 200 feet of a building "occupied exclusively as a school, church, synagogue or other place of worship…"

The SLA learned of the mosque—and began an investigation of bars in the area—after Angerosi's neighborhood opponents brought it to the agency's attention at a hearing last May.

		The mosque is sandwiched between two licensed establishments: Cercle Rouge, which opened last year, and 10-year-old Tribeca Tavern. Bubble Lounge opened 11 years ago, 188 feet from the mosque, according to the SLA. All three received notices of revocation. (Montrachet restaurant, 68 feet from the mosque, is apparently exempt because it predates the mosque's

opening in 1990.)

When bar or restaurant owners apply for a liquor license, they must swear that they are not violating the 200-foot law. If the SLA decides that the owner has falsified his application, he can lose his right to a license for two years. The West Broadway bar owners are pleading not guilty.

Georges Forgeois, who owns Cercle Rouge, said he thought Sufism, a branch of Islam, was "more a philosophy," rather than a religion. Besides, he said, several bars were already on the block when he moved in. "You cannot have someone spend all that money, then tell them that they can't have their license," he said. "That's not fair."

Tribeca Tavern owner Greg Kosovoi said that for 10 years he was unaware that a mosque was next door. Eric Benn, co-owner of the 11-year-old Bubble Lounge, said the same.

"None of us knew there was a mosque there," he said. "What kind of research are we supposed to do? Do we knock on every single door?"

The building at 245 West Broadway, open for services twice a week, has no signage other than the following four lines, in small print, on the door:

		Dergah/Nur Ashki Jurahai/Sufi Order/Masjid al-Farah A report written by an SLA investigator and obtained by the Trib concludes that the building is indeed a mosque, but states: "There are no signs or any indication that there is a Mosque located in the building."

For Peter and Janna Townsend, who live at 2 White Street across the street from the Liquor Store Bar, the law is clear. "The ABC law means exactly what it says," Peter Townsend said. "If it's a real place of worship then that's the end of the discussion."

The Liquor Store Bar's proximity to the mosque was not the residents' only complaint about it. In their testimony at the hearing, which was required because there are three or more liquor licenses within 500 feet of the bar, the Townsends and six other residents cited noise and unruly behavior from the bar under its previous owner, and what they said was an overconcentration of bars in the area.

"We have between 30 and 35 [licenses] within 500 feet of the proposed Liquor Store Bar," Townsend said last month in an interview, "and that seemed like plenty."

Facing the possible loss of their licenses, the bar owners are deciding their next steps. Bubble Lounge's current West Broadway entrance could be switched to what is now an exit on North Moore Street, Benn said. That would make his license legal by two feet, he noted, but would require applications to a slew of city agencies and expensive structural changes. "The cost could be prohibitive," he said.

Tribeca Tavern has another entrance on 6th Avenue and Kosovoi said he might turn the busy West Broadway entrance into a fire exit. "It would greatly hurt my business," he said. "But I will do whatever they tell me."

In the meantime, officials at the mosque said they have no objection to the nearby bars and have never had problems with them. A spokesman named Ali said the mosque would remain neutral in the dispute.

"We don't dictate other people's behavior," he said. "We believe in non-judging and tolerance."