By:JOSEPH KELLARD
With the arrival of the summer season has come a crackdown by the City on local bars as officials aim to keep the summer drinking crowds under control.
According to City Manager Ed Eaton, the City's enforcement of its codes led to a shutdown of two bars on the eve of the 4th of July holiday, Bogart's on West Park Avenue and the new Backyard Tiki Bar on West Beech. Both were found to have exceeded their maximum allowable capacities and were forced to close for that night.
For Long Beach's new Tiki Bar, the incident could be just the beginning of a long battle with its neighbors. In the wake of the fight between the popular Chauncey's and residents who successfully crusaded to close it may come a similar West End battle.
The Backyard Tiki Bar and Outdoor Grill opened for business on June 30 at 832-834 West Beech St., and some of its residential neighbors are already hoping it will suffer the same fate as Chauncey's.
The newly established bar is virtually surrounded by residential property and has an open backyard. For nine years, Nancy Edindjiklian has lived at one of the neighboring properties on Nebraska Street. In that time, there have been three tenants at what is now the Tiki Bar, all of whom Edindjiklian said "operated with some semblance of consideration for area residents."
In a letter she read to the City Council during its regular meeting on July 3, Edindjiklian told the Council that the establishment was once the home of a quiet neighborhood bar, but since the Tiki Bar opened, she said, cars speed down her street and her children's sleep is interrupted by the hooting and hollering of the bar's patrons.
Edindjiklian's and other resident's concerns voiced at the meeting focused on a variance granted in April by the Zoning Board pertaining to the rear-yard deck and backyard of the bar. The neighbors argued the language of the resolution was flawed.
During renovation of the establishment subsequent to the variance being granted, a rear wall that served as a sound barrier between the bar and the yard outside was knocked down. In place of the wall, bar owners put a glass pane up instead.
"Thus, we maintain that the conditions pertaining to the rear-yard deck are circumvented by the renovations that [bar owner Brian Braddish] has made since this resolution of April 27, 2001," Edindjiklian said.
Richard Perez, a Nebraska Street resident, told Council members, "A single pane of glass is now the only thing separating us from the noisy bar."
Edindjiklian also charged that the owners received preferential treatment from the Zoning Board and that its decision to allow the new establishment created a detriment to the community and should be rescinded.
At the meeting, City Manager Ed Eaton suggested measures by which the city could address concerns of the bar's neighbors.
"We will be on top of this," he said. "We'll be there at 11 p.m. on the weekends and 9 p.m. during the week and give repeated summonses if that's what's needed."
Eaton also insisted that no one establishment would be singled out.
"It's not just this bar that we will be watching."
One measure he said the City will take is stepping up enforcement of the maximum number of patrons bars are permitted at any given time.
"If there are more than they are allowed, then they will be getting appropriate summonses," Eaton said.
The City Manager said that, before the summer, he'd had a meeting with all the bar owners in town. "Either police yourself or we will police you," he said he told them.
On the very night of that Council meeting, the Nassau County Fire Marshal visited the Backyard Tiki Bar and ordered it shut down for the evening when he found 105 people in an establishment with a maximum of 56 allowed. The bar also received a summons.
Eaton reported to the Herald that, also that same night, Bogart's at 124 W. Park Ave. was also cleared out after the Fire Marshal issued the bar four summonses for such violations as blocking and locking exit doors, and more than doubling the maximum capacity of 185 people. Eaton said that about 400 people were in the bar. The bar was also later charged with serving underage drinkers.
Whenever a bar is issued a summons, whether because of a fight, underage drinking, overcrowding or other related reason, it is immediately submitted to the New York State Liquor Authority, which, Eaton said, "doesn't move with any alacrity in shutting down bars."
Edindjiklian, for one, believes conditions of a variance should clearly address specific consequences of violation. For example, a certain number of summonses in a specific time period should result in a loss of certificate of occupancy for a reasonable amount of time.
"The Long Beach Police Department has done a wonderful job in responding to the complaints of area residents," she said, "but calling the police night after night with the same complaints is clearly not the answer."
At the meeting, Eaton also suggested that noise meters can be used to issue summonses to bars.
Several calls were made by the Herald to the Backyard Tiki Bar and Bogart's, but employees at both declined to speak for this article.
