A Beer-Wine License for 'beca? It's A Tie

By Nick Pinto
POSTED JUNE 1, 2008

Does the 45-room Duane Street Hotel deserve a chance to offer wine and beer at ’beca, its skinny restaurant and five-seat bar? Community Board 1 is of two minds.

In  a rare, virtual tie vote May 27 (20-19 in favor with one abstention) the board provided no clear position—up or down—to the State Liquor Authority on granting the license.

Local foes have fought the hotel at every turn since its inception more than eight years ago, when the sliver of a building, on the corner of Duane and Church streets, was proposed to hold 66 rooms. Charges of duplicitous and uncooperative conduct toward the community by the building’s developer, Sam Chang, has fueled anger ever since. Opponents argue the relationship between the hotel owners, Hersha Hospitality and Chang, make them unworthy of a license. As evidence of that link, one of several opponents who spoke out, Jeff Ehrlich, cited an article saying that the two were partners in a hotel near JFK Airport.

“A beer and wine license remains a privilege. It is not a right,” said Jean Grillo, the Duane Street resident who has fought the hotel over the years and gathered 50 signatures against the license. “If you have been deceptive, if you have not been a good neighbor, you should not get a beer and wine license.”

Roger Byrom, chair of CB1’s Landmarks Committee, said the Chang organization provided “absolutely no help whatsoever when we were trying to make this a little more of an attractive building than it already is, and we were shunned and shunned and shunned.”

Robert Bookman, a lawyer for Hersha, which took full ownership of the hotel in December, said any problems neighbors have with Chang should not be visited on his clients.

“This applicant is the hotel operator which took over in January. They are not the developer that this community had significant problems with.”

“We have to be very careful,” said CB1 member John Fratta. “We cannot become punitive because of something that happened seven years ago.”

CB1 member Peter Braus agreed.

“People are angry about things that occurred in the past. That’s really not frankly what we’re here to vote on.” 

After the Board’s vote, CB1 staff said they will note the split vote when they pass the hotel’s application on to the State Liquor Authority, which has the final say on the application.

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