CB1 to Burg Bar: We Hate You, Don't Leave Us
The owners of a Williamsburg bar that’s frequently incurred the ire of neighbors came to the conclusion that the only way to appease the ‘hood was to put a cork in their business. Just one hitch: Community Board 1 has been making it almost impossible for the owners to close shop (according to the owners)….
The owners of a Williamsburg bar that’s frequently incurred the ire of neighbors came to the conclusion that the only way to appease the ‘hood was to put a cork in their business. Just one hitch: Community Board 1 has been making it almost impossible for the owners to close shop (according to the owners). Since opening three years ago on Bedford and North 11th, hip-hop bar Triple Crown‘s been on the receiving end of tons of noise complaints and has frequently been ticketed by police officers. Its owners say the complaints and ticketing continued even after they spent nearly $40,000 in early ’05 to soundproof and reconfigure the bar’s space. They decided to get out of the bar game about a year ago since the constant fines were making it nearly impossible for them to turn a profit. “We were never making a lot of money,” says Myles Tipley, who partnered with his cousin Kit Tipley and friend Michael Pappalardo to open Triple Crown. “And then as soon as we’d start doing well, we’d get fines. It was just really frustrating.”
But the trio’s frustrations didn’t end there…
because after finding someone who wanted to buy out their lease, they had to contend with the community board (which issues recommendations to the state about whether or not businesses should get liquor licenses). When the lease’s prospective buyer attended a CB1 meeting with Triple Crown’s owners around a year ago, he was reportedly scared away from the purchase by a group of residents who showed up to badmouth the establishment, according to Tipley, who adds that many people wore shirts reading “Kill Triple Crown.” In an article published in a Courier-Life paper last month (see scanned copy on jump), the chair of CB1’s public safety committee said board members opposed the sale both because they were wary of having another bar in the space and because they wanted to stop the bar’s owners from recouping their investments. In particular, Pappalardo had run afoul of the board because of his “obnoxious” behavior at CB meetings, according to a board member, who also said that “he has so antagonized his neighbors that it’s totally personal at this point.” The bar’s owners spent the next several months trying to secure another buyer for their lease and finally found someone who said he wanted to open up a bar that wouldn’t play ear-splitting music. Despite these stated intentions, CB1 narrowly voted against recommending a new liquor license for the space last month and is set to vote on the matter again next month. Tipley says he and his partners have been confused by the board’s actions and that the experience has soured them on being small business owners. “We just want to walk away from it,” he says. Anyone intimately acquainted with the other side of the story? GMAP
Wow! That CB board acts more like a co-op board than a community board. They have no legal right to come between business deals. I hope TC files a suit against that board for contract interferance than you will see them refuse to take responsibility for their actions and start whining too.
5:57 – “…tactics that keep an honest american business man from recouping his investment.”
Uh, that’s sort of the point. The TC brain trust has not acted honestly with anyone. The CB basically refuses to trust them and wants some guarantees in writing. 11:25 has a good point – the owners refuse to take responsibility for a situation they created.
There are other bars in Williamsburg playing hip-hop and with a racially mixed (gasp) crowd and it doesnt seem like they have had these problems. Then there is Bembe and tons of bars like that with a largely non-white crowd, they are fine.
Oh please, give us a break! The city will NOT issue fines based on complaints alone. The ECB has to measure the noise. So obviously there was a real problem.
I also have no pity for business owners like this because it costs so much less to simply soundproof than to constantly pay fines.
Just do it. Soundproof and work intelligently and sensitively with the residential neighbors. Even if offends your tough-guy persona, just think ahead like a true businessperson and do soundproofing. If you want to make money like a successful businessperson then yeah, you need to act like one.
This is nothing but yet another story of an amateur not doing the research and not preparing to open their business properly. It happens all the time to people of all races.
Though I do agree there is hidden snobbiness and racism in certain gentrified neighborhoods, this kind of whining and refusal to take personal responsibility for anything is really annoying. And won’t win much support either, outside whatever choir you’re preaching to. If it were so important culturally to have this place in this neighborhood, then the owners should have been responsible enough to ensure their business stayed open there.
HERE-HERE 11:36 & 11:08. And to 10:44, dialouge is healthy. Although I do not agree with your reasonning I congratulate all of you for openly discussing the issues. If this is a sign of the new willamsburg, maybe this will be a sign for a new brooklyn, a new NY, a new America, and hopefully a new World. A world with no room for what I call the modern day “Prophets of Prejudice”(Al Sharpton,Rudy Giuliani,anti-defamation league,gay mens health crisis,NAACP etc.)Let’s lead with another example.
The shame is that in all of this finger pointing, North Bedford is missing the opportunity to be commended as having some cultural diversity in a place that for many years has been segregated. For those who have never been to Triple Crown, you missing out on being on the front lines of social justice. Sure if mixing of the races is not your thing, certainly this is not the place for you. However, I dare to say that you don’t pull your head out of the sand; the world will pass you by. The person you prejudge simply because of the way they look is the same person that will come to your aid in a time of need. TC represented a global view Hip Hop music, not the sensationalized view we all see so frequently in the American media. Like the D Club in Lausanne, Jazz Cafe in London, Asia in Tokyo, The Unique Club, Düsseldorf, TC is a extension of the success that these clubs have established. There is a part of Hip Hop culture that is peaceful and diverse which includes Men and Women White, Black, Asian, and Indian. Perhaps this is what Mr. Pappalardo meant by “bringing cultureâ€. Not the knucklehead antics that happens in Pop music culture. If you ever took the time to come a participate you would find yourself meeting and speaking with folks from the neighborhood, five boroughs, Jersey, Conn, L.I.; to people from all over the globe. TC had a reputation from a global perspective of one of the only the places in Brooklyn which was musically and culturally diverse; good music, cool people and no drama. It’s a shame that the neighbors, the police and the board couldn’t not see past some of TC’s shortcomings. Ultimately, TC represents more that just noise, garbage and nuisance ticketing from the city agencies. But a place to come an relax and have fun after a long days work.
Can we all just get along?
If you don’t want them there, please allow the guys to re-coup their loses and leave peacefully. Just don’t replace TC with a Starbucks. There in lies no diversity or culture. It’s the same song, all around the world.
This is 11:36-I beg to differ with you 10:44. The courier article does in-fact mention it as a hip-hop bar and you don’t have to read between the lines because they mention it early in the third paragragh. And I quote ” A turn-table lounge that features mostly hip-hop – music opened. Almost immediately, the bar was deluged with complaints that only intensified…..” Now those of us who understand the creative writing process know that the writer of this article placed a dash after hip-hop to trigger the readers brain into pausing for a moment to reflect on what hip-hop means. For most, hip-hop means young, black, thugs with their pants hanging and drinking malt liquor in a brown paper bag. That was the writers subliminal message to us that this was indeed a place for undesireables. I don’t want to appear as someone who is defending the owners because obviously they had some problems.But I think you are being a bit naive when you suggest that no one mentioned race or the type of music at any meetings, therefore this was not about race. Racism is the 800lb gorilla in the room that everyone sees and ignores. And the constitutional laws set up to protect people are being used to remove people from business, employment, housing,etc. It is scary when you get elected community board members who say this is personal and come up with tactics that keep an honest american business man from recouping his investment. For What? Maybe the message was for him to stick with his own kind. God help us if whites start promoting black culture. This type of behavior will always keep decent non-blacks from speaking out against what they see and hear around the watercooler. There is a dumb slogan that we all have heard from time to time. “Once you go black, you never go back” I use to think it was referring to stupid stereotypes between blackmen and whitewomen. But now I think it is a message to other whites. ” Once you go black, you never go back” because you will no longer be accepted.
I was at the meeting mentioned in the original post. I don’t remember anyone wearing anti-Triple Crown t-shirts. I checked with two friends who were there, and neither of them remember it either.
NO SLACK FOR THE BLACK.
Not a damn thing changed…