Last year state Assemblywoman Joan Millman, a Democrat from Carroll Gardens, proposed legislation that would have required bars with outdoor drinking areas to move the party inside by 10 p.m. on weeknights and 11 p.m. on weekends. That bill quietly died on the vine, but Millman is back with a revised version that would require bars to close the great outdoors by midnight on weekends and 11 p.m. on weeknights, and also require them to obtain a special outdoor alcohol permit. Who could argue with such a sensible compromise... besides bar owners and irritable drunks who don't appreciate being corralled into a stuffy drinking coffin because The Man needs his beauty sleep?
"We’ve gotten a lot of complaints about it,” Millman tells the Brooklyn Paper. “We’re not trying to put anyone out of business; if you are a good, responsible owner then it won’t effect you.” On Wednesday, Community Board 6 voted unanimously to support the measure, and the board's District Manager, Craig Hammerman, told the Carroll Gardens Patch he'd "like to see [Albany lawmakers] act on it as quickly as possible." But Millman's bill, which would also prohibit amplified music from outdoor drinking areas, still needs a co-sponsor in the state Senate.
Bar owners like Jim Rowe, who runs Trophy Bar in Williamsburg, says the law would make his business even tougher, because, "we’re competing with Manhattan." He closes his outdoor section at 1 a.m., and tells Brooklyn Paper, "What we’re doing now is already reasonable." And last year Dave Pollack, owner of The Diamond in Greenpoint, told us, "The back yard is really our biggest draw, besides the shuffleboard table. People want to stay out there as late as they can, and we're really strict about pulling them in when the time comes." He voluntarily closes his beautiful back patio at 12:30 a.m. on the weekends and 11:30 p.m. during the week.
