Bay Ridge leaders are demanding the city and state ban together to close a troublesome nightspot after a New Year’s Eve brawl ended with one allegedly drunk couple being arrested for plowing down four other patrons outside the bar with their car.
Councilman Vincent Gentile (D–Bay Ridge) and state Sen. Marty Golden (R–Bay Ridge) threatened to thunder the combined weight of the State Liquor Authority and the city’s health and buildings departments upon 93 Lounge on 93rd Street between Third and Fourth avenues, where the Jan. 31 revel turned into a nightmare, sending one man to Lutheran Medical Center where he remains in a medically induced coma.
“Enough is enough!” said Gentile. “I plan to coordinate a multi-agency response team to ameliorate this scourge on Bay Ridge.”
A Golden spokesman said his boss had a similar resolution.
“It cannot continue to operate the way it is, it is destroying the quality of the families of this block and our neighborhood,” said John Quaglione. “It’s time to shut the place down.”
Other community officials said they have begged the state for years to yank the club’s liquor license, claiming the joint has long been a hot spot of violence and drug abuse.
“We felt very strongly that they should not have gotten that license, and that position stands,” said Community Board 10 district manager Josephine Beckmann, who claimed she has received dozens of complaints from block residents during the past year about illicit activity at the club, which city records show doesn’t have a certificate of occupancy, or a cabaret license, despite advertising fun-filled disco parties on Facebook.
Ron Coury, Sr. who runs the lounge with his son, said their establishment was not at fault for the New Year incident, and insisted cops have only been called in twice in the three years they have been open — once to report a missing cellphone and another time for a missing wallet.
“That’s the only two blemishes on our record, everything else is a fantasy,” said Coury.
The club has a clean slate with the State Liquor Authority — spokesman Bill Crowley said it had no prior violations — but the Worker’s Compensation Board shut the club down last December for failing to insure its workers, re-opening it within days after the Courys paid a fine.
— with Natalie Musumeci
Reach reporter Will Bredderman at wbredderman@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-4507. Follow him at twitter.com/WillBredderman.
