It’s bye-bye for Studio B, at least for now.
The Department of Buildings shut down the late-night Greenpoint music and dance venue this week, following Community Board 1’s Public Safety Committee’s rejection last week of the club’s application for a cabaret license.
The club is closed indefinitely, though Ken Fisher, an attorney with WolfBlock representing Studio B (259 Banker Street), asserted that his client was fixing the violations and the venue would be open shortly.
“The owners were asked by local residents to increase security and street cleaning and to make some physical improvements such as additional soundproofing, all of which they agreed to,” Fisher said.
Owners of the Greenpoint-based club and local residents clashed again at a Public Safety meeting on July 31, as 15 community residents gave testimony during the meeting’s public session regarding excessive noise, safety concerns, and trash accumulating around the club’s Banker Street entrance.
“One thing that bothered me is that they were caught with over 650 people in a space legally sanctioned for only 461,” said “Miss Heather,” a local blogger and Greenpoint resident who did not want to give her real name for this piece. “Had there been an emergency, how could firemen or EMS workers get in there and how could all those people get out?”
According to Miesko Kalita, chair of the Public Safety Committee, the club was willing to adhere to a number of concessions, but committee members thought that the concessions did not go far enough.
“They promised to sweep the sidewalk and keep people who smoke near designated ashtrays, but those are not really concessions,” Kalita said. “That’s how every bar should be expected to behave. It’s their duty to keep the sidewalk clean. If people smoke, it’s customary for many venues to keep them in a designated area and provide them ashtrays.”
After hearing considerations for and against granting the cabaret license, the committee voted to decline the application one for and two against, with one abstention.
For community residents, the issue is one of trustworthiness. Several residents cited that they were not opposed to granting a cabaret license in general, but that the hearing allowed them a forum to bring further issues to the attention of the community board and public safety officials and to hold the club accountable for their violations.
“This is about Studio B being a bad neighbor,” said Miss Heather. “The committee didn’t feel comfortable letting the club have their cabaret license for now.”
Captain Dennis Fulton of the 94th Precinct, who attended the meeting, was surprised by the testimony of community residents and a poster one woman brought to the hearing advertising a Labor Day weekend party. The Studio B ad was promoting a three-day, 24-hour party with dancing. Captain Fulton explained that the venue must close at 4 a.m. since it is not legal to operate for 24 hours.
“You can’t go dancing on the roof because there is no certificate of occupancy for the roof, you can’t dance because they don’t have cabaret license, you can’t serve liquor on roof because you only have a liquor license for the ground floor, and you can’t have a 24-hour party because you have to close at 4 a.m.,” said Kalita.
The community board’s executive committee met this past Wednesday to vote on the club’s cabaret application, in lieu of the board’s monthly meeting. While the committee may deny the application (the vote was taken before this article went to press), Fisher hopes that the Department of Consumer Affairs will ultimately grant what Studio B’s owners want.
“While they were understandably disappointed that the committee voted 2-1 against the application, they are confident that the Department of Consumer Affairs will determine that the premises meet the appropriate safety standards, which is the basic criteria by which cabaret licenses are evaluated,” said Fisher.
