Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutZBA-06/28/1995 HEARING INDEX J--~,~ ~,~, /~?~' APPL. # PAGES APPLICANT SE 4246 LKC CORP. 1 - 45 (end) 7:20 p.m. LKC CORP. (also referred to as OCEAN CITY or JASTA, INC. MR. CHAIRMAN: Let's see if the lessee is present, we don't see him. So then we'll go on to the owner, and I believe he is represented by counsel, sir? So whenever Mr. Meyer is ready. FREDERICK C. MEYER, ESQ.: I had~ spoken to James (Lebkuecker) and he said he was r~nnJng a little late. CHAIRMAN: That's all right. We're going to be a little while. SECRETARY: Are you ~epresentJng Mr. Lebkuecker also? MR. MEYER: I represent LKC Corporation. CHAIRMAN: Which is the owner of the property, is that correct? MR. MEYER: Which is the owner of the property. Is this (mike) on? Can you hear me? CHAIRMAN: Yes. MR. MEYER: And my client called me to come over and attend this meeting. Apparently he was here June 9th (7th), and my client is Mr. Coudrey who is the Secretary of LKC Corporation. He indicated to me, first excuse me, I should give you my appearance. Frederick C. Meyer, 10 Sagamore Road, Shinnecock Hilis, New York. Having been requested by the landlord to come and represent the corporation at this hearing, and that request some time around the 15th of June - 15, 20 of June. I came over earlier this week on Monday and looked at the file. I had a previous discussion with Mr. Fish (Building Inspector) on the telephone and then got over here on Monday and looked at the file and read the transcript of the last meeting you had. I Page 4 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June L(5~, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals noticed that in that meeting there were a number of references to police reports. And so I looked at the police reports that were in the file. And I looked at virtually every piece of paper that was in both the planning Board file, which is a previous file that granted this site pl, n and this use, and the BZA file which b-~, cont, ins the police reports. There are no reports, no police reports, no in~pectore' reports of any municipal agent of this town in the pl~lnning Board file. Every-thing is in the BZA file. CHAIRMAN: MR. MEYER: ZBA. ZBA file. I counted 39 police reports. And I broke them down. Nine of them are false activation of security alarms. Five of them belonged to a single next-door neighbor who complained abou£ cars being parked in his parking lot at night. True, it is private property and he's entitled to cordon it off. But hi.~ business is not open at hight, and I wonder if there isn't something else that he's not disclosing to us that perhaps he should come forward and talk to us about. One of these was noise. I could tell you from some experience that where involved with bars of any kind, noise is the most frequent complaint in any place where I've represented a bar before any of the local municipalities in Southampton or East Hampton. And in this case there's only one complaint in the year. And I think that's because of the construction of the building, the fact that it is well insulated, and there are no windows, and therefore the noise is con 'rained. CHAIRMAN: I apologize, Mr. Meyer, I forgot to sw(.~ar you in. Do you solemnly swear that everything you are about to tell us is the truth to the best of your ability? Page 5 - Hearing Transc~ript ~ Regular Meeting of June~!~, 1993 Southold Town Board of Appeals MR. MEYER: sworn forever. CHAIRMAN: disturbances. It is. And as an attorney admitted to the Courts, I'm There were eight police reports which concerned Fights. Aflame- fights, excuse me. Actual physical violence being done from one person to another. And of that eight which include two reports by separate officers on the same [~ight, there are five of the eight which involve injuries to i~ersonnel who were employed by the sports bar in enforcing the regulations. And the $outhold Town Police were called thel~ when in fact employees were injured by customers when they were in fact attempting to enforce the regulations of the town and of the bar. There is one theft. There are four drug activities. However, some of these drug activities charges t~ke place by the description in the police reports several blocks away from the bar. There are four disorderly conducts. That is, people loitering, and in one case there is no - its merely the police report says, ~saw a ~roup of youths assembling and stopped to disperse them.~ Now, so that when we get down to what's there's also one where the police went to inves[igate a report that there was a cage claneer in the place. And that report indicates no violation. There were two other, which are merely inspections, and I might note to the Board that they are the only in.qpections by any municipal authority of this town that has any authority to go in and insp~,ct this place. They were both police officers. They both noted that they made inspections, one of them on New Year's Eve and in both reports thore are no violations. CHAIRMAN: I don't know what you mean by "no viola[ions." Page 6 - Hearing Tra~lscript Regular Meeting of June ~, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals MR. MEYER: Read the police reports. One is dated December 31st, 1994. And the police report says, and I can paraphrase - you have them, I did not got copies of them. "No violations," it says so right on the report. And there's an earlier one which I believe is November 1994. CHAIRMAN: We have two police officers here tonight. MR. MEYER: Fine. CHAIRMAN: They may not be the 'persons that wrote that report but we're going to ask them what their determination generically means, no violations, all right. I mean, they are not here inspecting the building. They are not looking at the building in violation of a certain possible building violation, whatever the case might be. I don't know what they mean by "no violations." MR. MEYER: Well, I would ask if these police officers did make any inspection or appearance at that property, did they file a police report. And ff so, is it in the file. Is it one of the ones I reviewed, and ff not, why not. CI{AIRMAN: Ok. MR. MEYER: Now, the other thing is that, so the only two police reports that indicate an inspection of the pre,-i.~es that are in the some 39 you have, both indicated no violations. Now, I see letters in here regarding overcrowding. There is a mnnlcipal officer of this town and every town has one who has the authority to inspect this place for overcrowding, and I notice in 11 months according to the file you have with the Beard of Zoning Appeals, for 11 months there is no inspection by the fire inspector and no report of an inspector indicating overcrowding. Now, that's important representing the landlord. Because under the NYS Fire Code, Page 7 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June ~, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals if in fact the fire inspector had found a violation, he is in-~tructed by the New York State Fire Code to report that to the property owner, not to the tenant. So that if there had been an inspection by the only officer here in thi.~ municipality, and the officer specifically designated to inspect for overcrowding, we would have had an immediate report required by New York State Law which would have held the landlord that there were violations on the property. The~ l~ndlord comes here and as he said to me, and I have his word and the file, there is no letter in the file notifying the landlord of any of the activities which occurred during the year. The landlord contacted me in mid-June of 1995, and he told me, and he is here to testify hlm.~eif that his first ~otification of these violations was on the 9th of June when he met you. I would just say that had the fire inspector made an inspection and found overcrowding, we would have been alerted and we were not. Now, there was one stabbing there. Very serious problem. But I point to you the fact that the number of times and I have eight police reports in that number there that were people injured who were employees enforcing the rules and keeping people in line. Apparently, several were struck w/th beer bottles by unruly patrons. I tell you that you should consider that there are people actively working to eld'orce the regulations and keep order in that place. And for the most part they have been successful because when we go through all these 39, there are, I believe, eight that are marked as criminal reports in a year. For a place that has that number of people coming through it, other than a church, I submit to you that's a very good record. Page 8 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June ~, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals Now the drug activity which takes place some block and a half, two blocks away, even though the people are patrons who a~e cowing to this area in order to frequent this bar, is not something that the owner of this bar can be any more responsible for than for ins~nee the Long Island Railroad if someone using their parking lot performs a drug trai~saetion. Now the question of parking comes up and there ba-~ been, there are indications in the f'~le that there are' objections to parking alld that the parking was not being - the cars were not being parked in the proper place. And I notice that the $outhold Town did in fact cooperate with New York State to outiaw parking along the north side of that road, and they did that in May of 1995. My question to you is, that had the proprietor of this sports bar gone out to people between July of 1994 and April of 1995, and said "you can't park there," what person there would have been wrong in saying, Uwhy not? Parking is allowed along the State Highway unless it's marked otherwise." You are telling the owner of thi.~ property that he had the affirmative duty to go out to a total stranger and direct that stranger not to park in a place where the State of New Town of Southold until May 1995 said they could legally York and the park. CHAIRMAN: To a certnin degree, Mr. Meyer, that portion is properly correct; however, the issue that is before us, if you raise the issue of overcrowding or raise the issue of parking, that we thought there were 21 on-site parking spaces. We understand now that the pisnning Board has approved 21. We also through observations of myself, that there had to be at least four to five people that were basically either owners - excuse me, in command sort of speak as employees of people you were mentioning Page 9 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June ;~, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals in the police reports. That would then pretty much in my opinion bring it down to about 15 pa~lclng spaces on site, all right. We had an agreement with thi.~ lessee that he was to get parking from the neighbor to the west. The neighbor to the west is a gentieamn that I've known for some 23 years. He indicated by oath, or on the record at the last hearing that after they had gotten site plnn approval that he felt that it was not - and I'm not spenklng for him, we'll'bring it back up ~aln that he thought it was not necessary. MR. MEYER: I read the tran.~cript of the last meeting. CHAIRMAN: And so then I approached Joe Croashaw, and I said, "Jee" by telephone this past week, and I said, "Joe what really happened here?" And he said, "He told me that he didn't need it any more. He then proceeded to try and uae it and then I blocked him and couldn't use it" and so on and so forth, and that was the issue. The whole issue here is that in a sports bar with a rnnx~m,lm occupancy of this special permit of 75 people, the utilization of on-site parking was one of the elements of the decision. I myself and I know one board member gets sick and tired of me saying this, but I will say it again, I've been a firern~n ill the town of Mattituck for 27 years. I am an officer of the rescue squad and I am an active member of the Rescue Squad and we go to many accidents in that area. It is a very tough area to park in along the road. That was the reason why we placed that restriction on this pacticular lessee. And that was the concern we had. Notwithstanding the fact of what you're saying. You're absolutely correct. You're allowed to park on a State Highway. All right. Now, for the period of time tl~at it took to get the State to act on this, we had asked the Town Board and I again applaud Page 10 - Hearing Transcript t~egular Meeting of June ~, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals the Town Board for going after the State and requesting this. As you know, that there was a vast change in the State last November, ok. And that's what held up this letter from the D.O.T. Not the Town Board. Not our reluctance to do it. But basically that type of situation. I'm sorry. You can continue. MR. MEYER: No, sir. As applies to that I am happy to be hear representing the landlord. Because We read the initial conditions. We were told that there was a lease in place with Crenshaw, that there would be parking ava/iable at the concrete place, aad we believed until June the 9th that that was in fact occurring, and there was no notice from the tenant or from the Town to the landlord that that was not the case, and [ believe that having become aware of the fact that the terms which you stip,,1Ated in your initial grant were not being obeyed, you could have before you were not required to wait until the renewal period. That you had the authority to terminate the speaial exception as soon as those conditions were violated. CHAIRM~: You are absolutely correct. But we had no notice. Now, we have a landlord who signed the lease, who saw conditions stipulated by this board, saw the effectuationof the leases, and those things necessary to carry out every-thing that this board said and from July of 1994 to June 8thor 1995, had no notice of any violation. He has a significant amount of money invested in this property. He has a lessee who obtained a liquor license to come in and run the place and he has valuable property rights at risk, and his first notification was June the 9th, 1995. And I assure you, I know my client. I've represented him regarding many other Page 11 - Hearing Trans~cript Regular Meeting of June .~g, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals properties for some years now and had he known that your regulations were not being obeyed. CHAIRMAN: Yes, but you know it now and we're still within the period. So that's basically the issue at this point. MR. MEYER: We know it now, and now we can take action. SECRETARY: How is he going to-- MR. MEYER: Well we have a tenant'in violation of his lease. Now we have a situation where this lease has an option. It's a two plus five. Now it's the tenant's option, but if the tenant by the terms of the lease is in violation of the lease and he loses hi.~ license, and because of his own act, he can't continue to ~ent, we have property rights that we can enforce at law ag2inst him. The problem we have is that this right to use this property, as far as I know, it's the only use that it's ever had has been as a bar. The right to use this property ms a sports bar is an inherent property right of my client which he's going to lose if you deny the special exception. If you deny it to this tenant, I would ask you to consider if we can m~ke application to continue the use with another tenant, because I think there are two people at fault here with all due respect to this Board. Number One is the tenant who didn't comply. And I'll tell you another reason why I was very much surprised when I was called in. When we negotiated this lease, the tenant's attorney was Michael Hill, who I've known and respected for 15, 20 years. And I thought he was under the guidance and counsel of an attorney. And I find out since that he's discharged Mr. Kill. So this was a surprise to me because I frankly think that he had been taking Michael Hill's advice, he wouldn't have made the moves that he made. So now we are in a Page 12 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June ~, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals situation where we have a valuable property right which the landlord is about to lose because of conduct of the tenant o£ which he had no knowledge and the other party I hold at fault, is the Town. If you have -- let me just finish the thought if you had knowledge that there is overcrewcling ill thi~ place, I don't k~ow why someone didn't ask the fire inspector to go down there on a busy night and make an official report, then by State Law we would have bee,/ notified. MEMBER TORTORA: What you were notified of that this was a conditional permit, were you not? You knew that a year ago. MR. MEYER: In July, yes. MEMBER TORTORA: You knew that a year from now the conditions of this permit would be reviewed before it was renewed, is that correct? MR. MEYER: Yes, we knew that. ~ER TORTORA: So that you knew that all of the conditions of that permit had to be met in order for it to be renewed so how can you claim yOU didn't know? And the conditions included. The lease with the parking. Attendants. The occupancy. How ~ you claim you didn't know? MR. MEYER: Let's take them one at a time. At the time that this Beard granted its approval there was a written lease for the parking. Or it says so in the transcript anyway. MEMBER TORTORA: But your client agreed and Lf you had reviewed the hearing even a year ago, your client agreed to uphold the terms of that. That's in the testimony. Not the lessee. Your client. Your client agreed to assume responsibilityfor the lessee. Page 13 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June ~, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals MR. MEYER: the 9th, 1995. MEMBER TORTORA: was his responsibility. He bad absolutely notice, no notice of a violation until June But if he agreed to assume the responsibility, it MR. MEYER: Let me suggest to you that my client is not a r~n who frequents sports bar in the late hours. He works very haod. He runs a paint store all right. He has come to' the property on many occasions and I bare come by the property on many occasions, and thought it looked neat. The first thing I checked was to make sure that they bare complied with the requirements for the site plan as far as plantings, et cetera. The builrllno~r was neat. It's well p~inted. It was well rn~intained, and it appears to me to be a well run business. If I come by here during my working day, let's say as late as maybe 5:30 or 6 o'clock at night, and I drive past the place and I drive in and drive threugh it as I bare, I see no trash. I don't see any cars there because they're.~ not open yet. But I don't see any damage to the building and I hear ab:~olutely nothing, and no notice h~.~ gone to the l~ndlord. Wbat basis have I to assume tbat anything is not going as ordered by the Town? MEMBER TORTORA: If you know that your permit is up for renewal, I would think tbat it would be incumbent upon you and your client to assure tbat there's a lease and to assure that those conditions were met. We didn't even hear from you at the last hearing. You weren't present. MR. MEYER: I didn't know about it. MEMBER TORTORA: I don't know, l,inda, do you- SECRETARY LINDA KOWALSKI: We sent notice to your client. I did. CHAIRMAN: The owner was here. Page 14 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June 1~, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals MR. MEYER: SECRETARY: CHAIRMAN: My client was here. Yes. Mr. Meyer wasn't hired yet, I assume. KENNETH COUDREY: I didn't know there was any violation of the property. SECRETARY: Excuse me, I told you there was a problem with the file and I told you there was the builclirig inspector's letter in the file and that you may want to consult your attorney. I've talked to you before that hearing and explained that. MR. MEYER: When was that? SECRETARY: The last hearing was held on June 8th, so I spoke to him I would say, excuse me, not June 8th wrong date. June 7th was the last hearing, I would say two or three weeks before that. MR. MEYER: What was wrong with October, November, December, January, February, March, and Apr/l? CHAIRMAN: I have to be honest with you, Mr. Meyer, I mean, I'm the person charged with running this but I am not the person that you'd ask that question to, ok. Our particular opinion is that all the ducks have to be in order. The pecking order has to be perfect. And the pecking order is not perfect. That's what we're concerned with. Ok. What actions other agencies took in this town, I don't care about. I care logistically about it, ok, but I don't care when they actually don't concern those individual situations that we mentioned in our decision. Now, I have to be honest with you, there were inspections by building inspectors. MR. MEYER: Where are the reports, sir? Page 15 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June ~, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals CHAIRMAN: I have no idea. I am not -- MR. MEYER: They are not with anyone. Suppose I had driven over there, come to the town o£ Southold, come in and opened up the file and the only file I knew of at that time wa~ the planning lloard, would come to the Building Department and ask for reports of inspections by Building Inspectors. Now, correct me if I'm wrong. But a building inspector would inspect as to the structural in{egrity of the building. The safety of the plumbing and the electricity. He would not inspect as to overcrowding. That would be a fire inspector's -- CHAIRMAN: No, he Mn inspect as to overcrowding. We have had him in the movies several times in this town. He holds dual qoallfications. MR. MEYER: There is one letter in the file that is recently dated, I believe, June 1995 from Mr. Fish and that's the only record -- BOARD SECRETARY: Excuse me, no. I want to correct something. There was a letter sent to your client and to Mr. Lebkuecker and to LKC Cox~p. on May 11, 1995 from the Board of Appeals. We sent you a copy of the letter from the Building Department. We also brought it to his attention that there were numerous complaints about parking, egress, and excessive occupancy and that he should be prepared to address those things at the hearing on June Now it's almost two months later. MR. MEYER: Let me say it February, March, and April. BOARD SECRETARY: But you have notice now. address it now after having notice for two months? 7th. That was May llth - not June. You have had notice',. again. November, December, January, tlow are you going to Page 16 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June ~g, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals MR. MEYER: If we're given an opportunity to, we can address it. For one thing, we have a leasehold violation. Because when your terms and stipulations are violated, our lease is violated. And we have the remedies to dispossess and remedies of ejectment against the tenant. But we have to know of a violation and as a l~ndlord with inspections of the property, thi.~ property has been inspected practically monthly I think for the ln.~t year and we could not see 'a violation. Now what happens at m/d-night, one o'clock in the morning. One can't tell by driving through the property or /n.~pectlng the property at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. CHAIRMAN: No, but at 8 o'clock in the morning you could. Mi{. MEYER: Well there is nothing even in the S~uthold Town papers that I have been able to find about any incident at this club. CIL&IRMAN: Fine, that's your opin/on but, you know, for all inLensive purposes you're very welcome to your opinion. Based upon the testimony that you're presenting before us. I just would like to ask you to w-rap this up /niti~lly at thi.~ point so that we do have two police officers, and we would like them to get back to work and back to their fnrnil/es ~Lnd they have gratuitously come here and we appreciate that. MR. MEYER: I have checked all the reports that have appeared in your files as of the 26th of June, 1995. I find no official report of overcrowding. I find two reports by police officers cit/nC that they had inspected the prem/ses and there are no vio'lations. I find no notice before a date in May when a letter was sent to my client. MR. MEYER: My client has a valuable property interest in this special exception. He has a valuable property interest, and he will lose a great deal of money if the special exception is denied to the property. As far Page 17 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June 2~, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals as the conduct of the tenant in that property, having been made aware, we are now in the position to enforce which we not prior to your notification to us. CHAIRMAN: Before you leave, I just wanted to me~tion to you that we will certainly take your request in reference to whatever action this board takes concerning that particular issue of possibility of another special exception if the board so deems it. I have no idea what we intend to do at this point. I haven't spoken to anybody about it. BOARD SECRETARY: Based upon what the cede provides. CHAIRMAN: Yes. That's basically it at this moment. MR. MEYER: I appreciate it. Thank you for your time. CHAIRMAN: Gentlemen, how are you tonight? Thank you for coming. I think we'll address Officer Tirelii first if he wouldn't udnd. POLICE OFFICER VINCENT TIRELLI at the microphone. CHAIRMAN: Yes. Would you k~ndly l~e your right bznd and solemnly swear to tell the whole truth to the best of your knowledge, Mr. Tirelli? OFFICER TIRF. r.LI: I do. CHAIRMAN: ThAnk you. I don't have any pre-set plan. This is not a court of law. We are very simply business people empowered by the Town Board to be here to review this, and I have - the reason you were asked to come here is we have had several reports that your Fame is on, and of course, I know you personally. But I merely wan[ed to go back and I won't go individually into each one of them, ok. Except for the one on 11/19 which was the stabbing incident, I believe. My basic issue, or line of questiorliugis merely to ask you that what you (~bserved at the time you were there around that time, I'm concerned about numerous cars Page 18 - Hearing Trauscript Regular Meeting of June ~-f, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals parked outside of the parking areas. I am concerned about issues that concern overcrowding in the building, and so on and so forth. Not necessarily things that logistically placed in the police report which you empowered to do as a police officer, could you tell us? OFFICER TIllELLI: On the particular night of the stabbing you're talking about? CHAIRM~kN: Yes, and thereafter. ' OFFICER TIltET.r.[: I was off duty that night, I went with the rescue squad. But I do remember it was very difficult to respond. I went in my ow~l personal vehicle. I was basically triple-parked in front of the neighbor to the east, and my truck was about halfway out into the road. It was the only place I could find, they had cars parked, actually double parked in front of Kreiger Well. There was one car facing the wrong direction. Several at a 45 degree angle. And that went all the way east and west of that particular site. A very large crowd milling about. At times it was very disorderly. I remember one point kicking myself, tx~ring to kick myself and said "I forgot to bring my gun" because I thought we would need it. There were only three or four police officers there on duty. And I was concerned for the safety of everybody that was there. The people that were there were not dispersing. Several minor push and shove brawls broke out afterwards. I know I left wi(h the rescue squad and I commend myself for being smart because I was off and if anything had happened, I probably would have been on my own. But I remember being glad to be out of there. It was a pretty crazy evening. And then the weather kicked in too. It was t~.~ining fakrly hard. On that particular night. But I've 'also been there as back-up on several other Page 19 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June Zg, 1995 Southold Town Board of At)peals incidents of disturbances, parklng of- couple of big cars that were parking where the people ran out of places to park 'along the Main Road. They were parking on a lot adjacent to Kreiger Well and that lot was full. Up and down B~¥ Avenue on both sides of the street where, I don't remember particularly, I couldn't, got down thc road with a police car. If an ambulAn_ce or a fire truck had to do it, it just was not going to happen. And we just got out and' starting w~itlng summonses and the word got out, and the place emptied out and ~ just started moving. On a particular case a eouple of months ago it was 9:00 o'clock on a Sunday morning, I went by at 8:00 and saw 50 or 60 youths in front of the place. I questlonedlllyself as to what was goin~ on. A little while later, I went by al~d saw there was a lot more cars parked all over the place again. So I went in and spoke to Mr. Lebkuecker. He advised me that there was an after-hours party. It was mostly between ages of 16 and 21. No alcohol was being served which was m~r main concern. It turned out that I didn't - I saw one local person loug after - when we finally decided that we had enough, two or three drug arrests were made, parking once again was atrocious. We spent a good 45 minutes up on Brey Avenue just trying to clear it out. I thinlr we ~ out of parking tickets. Myself, Officer Beebe, Detective Burke, alld, I believe it was Sergeant Sider, were there. We ran out of parking tickets. I had 10 or 12. Officer Beebe brought a bunch from headquarters. And Detective Burke was helping. Eventually the cars started moving. We actually got to the point where we had called up a few local shops to warm up to the tow trucks. Becauae we were just going to start towing cars out there because nobody could get through. I remember one time I Page 20 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June ~, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals almost got hit by a car. I was standing along side of a car and another car attempted to come through and I had to actually walk to the front of the car, step to the side, so this lady could just squeeze her car through. The one of the people that were arrested gave a statement, I don't know if it's in your file. I don't have it with me. That he bad purcha.~ed drugs inside of the premises. Two more arrests were made in the parking lot along with the resisting arrest - one of the patrons tried to run on me and had to be physically detained. At that same time about 150 people who were in the parking lot started making threats towards myself and my partner. For the first time in nine years I called it - we call it 10-1, which is officer needs help, which means everybody in Town goes. We had one car covering the whole town while everybody was there. When we went in, I informed Mr. Lebkuecker - he was closed. That was the end of the day for them. And we talked to him about hi.~ occupancy, and he said he was allowed 185 people. He had one of those clickers in his hand that it was 185. That's how we kept track of who came in and who came out. MEMBER TORTORA: Do you remember when that was, Officer Tirelii? OFFICER TIRELLI: I don't particularly reeali. MEMBER TORTORA: Was that the 5/21 ineiden£? OFFICER TIRELLI: Was it drug arrests, possession of? MEMBER TORTORA: Drug arrests. OFFICER TIRELLI: Yes, that was it. And Sergeau[ Sidor and I tried to count how many people came out. I got to 150 and was distracted. Sergeant Sidor got to about 180 and was distracted. And that was just Page 21 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June ~, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals people who were inside the building. There were a whola lot more outside. MEMBER TORTORA: About how many people were outside. That was what you counted inside was 1507 OFFICER TIRELLI: Inside, on the whole premises, I would irm~ne between 75 to 100 more that were just milling about at different times, up and down the street. They were literally afl over the place. Within a 114 mile radius they were literally afl over the place. They wera parking on private property once again. And then once again milling around for another 45 minutes because a lot of them didn't have rides. We identified, I would estimate 35 to 40 people afl from Connecticut,' Albany, up the west end of the Island. I saw one local pek-son on the way out that I knew to be local. There might have been more. I've also been there as back-up on several other fight calls. I was there about four weeks a~o when a bartender or a bouncer was struck with either a beer or vodka bottle that night. What happened, we were called there, there were numerous fights in progress. Upon my arrival I was met by a person on the ramp who was holding his head with a towel to it, and one of the other people who worked there was attending to him. He had cuts on the back of his head. He told me he had been hit by a bottle. MEMBER TORTORA: About how many people who there that evening? OFFICER TIRELLI: I don't even know. I didn't go in. I went in and looked around very quickly. It was hard for me to lake a head count. was just looking for fights. CHAIRMAN: I just wanted to ask, how many other ~umereus times have you been there where you have counted or actually gone into the place, Page 22 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June 2g, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals other th~n the I guess the inspection you did last week when there wasn't anybody in the place? OFFICER TIRELLI: I've been in there, I would estimate four to five times with back up, once or twice, as the reporting o£ficer. CHAIRMAN: Would you say that the place was very overcrowded, moderately overcrowded, or? OFFICER TIREI.L[: The worse I saw was on the May you said May 21st, that was the worst I saw. When we went in, it was - they were elbow to elbow. And they wero slam dancing; I didn't know if I had fights or what they were doing. But they were elbow to elbow, and it took 15 minutes to clear the place to get them out. And that was, we went just luckily you're closed, lie shut off the music. He turned out the lights. He told everybody they were closed. And everybody was filing out. This was not a case of, Ok and going up to everybody and saying you have to leave. They all left. So it was an orderly departure. It wasn't we had to go cha-~e them and took 15 minutes. It was over 10 minutes, I know that, but it was probably closer to 15 just for everybody to file out the front door. That's how m~ny people there were. And like I said, I got to 150. Sergeant Sidor said he was at 180 before anybody came out. Before we both lost track of how many people were there. And it was a long time after we stopped counting the people that the place was empty. MFaMBER TORTORA: The occupancy level on the pre,ni~e total inside the building and on the property is 75. OFFICER TIRELLI: We are aware of that now. On that date there was a sign that said 185. I don't know where it came from. I don't know who Page 23 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June 2~, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals put it there. But Sergeant Sidor went in, and he showed it to me afterwards. Because I had to go get the liquor license number for the SLA ~eferral, and I said it too. And I believe right after that someone came in and changed it. CHAIRMAN: That was the building inspector. OFFICER TIRELLI: I'm pretty sure it was the building iu-~peetor. Yes. CHAIRMAN: Ok. Down the other' end, gentlemen, any questions of Officer Tirelli, Jim? (None) Serge? (None) Those questions (mn be directed toward the board so if you would like to use that mike and direct them. MR. MEYER: I will. CHAIRMAN: You are not forced to answer these questions, Officer Tirelli. MR. MEYER: I'm concerned about this sign stating 185 which was posted. Did there come a time when someone from Suuthold Town went to the place and corrected that sign, is that what 1 just heard? CHAIRMAN: That is my understanding. MEMBER TORTORA: That's our understanding. MR. MEYER: And was that by New York State for - CHAIRMAN: I have no idea. sign a legitimate sign, form that is issued I have no idea where it came from. MR. MEYER: Was there any notification given to the fire inspector that there was an improper sign placed? MEMBER TORTORA: That's not within this Board's jurisdiction. I don't know. MR. MEYER: Oh. All right. Page 24 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June Zg, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals CHAIRMAN: Tbank you, Officer Tirelli. OFFICER TIRELLI: Thank you. CHAIRMAN: Officer Grathwohi, how are you tonight? We thank you again for coming. It's a pleasure seeing you. Again, do you solemnly swear that everything you are about to say is the truth to the best of your knowledge? POLICE OFFICER GRATHWOHL: I do.' I'm Officer Edward Grathwohi. CHAIRMAN: Did there come a time again, no - this is not a court of law - not here - we appreciate you're coming. As in the case of the prior officer, did there come a time where you had been celled to this establishment and you had indicated in your opinion I'm not putting words in your mouth - that there were probably exc(~ss, excessive people as there was an overcrowding condition. Did you obs(~rve that? (ChAnged tape to side B). OFFICER GRATHWOHL: Yes. I believe it was the night of the late stabbing. I believe it was the 19th of November. CHAIRMAN: November. Right. OFFICER GRATHWOHL: Also as Officer Tirelli s'~ated it was a very rainy, stormy night actualiy. I responded there as an assisting officer. Officer Conway actually was the officer assigned to the incident with salt that had taken place. On arriving, we observed approximately 50 or in excess of that people outside of the bar. Upon t~jing to figure out what had happened, and dealing with the parking which was horrendous due to the people around and also just vehicles traveling on the roadway, it was a very dangerous incident. Upon clearing out the people that we could outside of the business, we attempted to after we get the injured Page 25 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June ~z~, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals taken care of, we dealt with the owner, I'm sorry the runner of the establishment, to close him down for the evening because of the acts of violence that were taking place after the stabbing. Pushing, fighting and act,,ally some beer bottles already being broken in the parking lot while we were there. Myself and Officer Conway had entered the business and found in excess of 100, 120 people inside. Upon advising Mr. Lebkuecker tb~t we were shutting d~)wn the place for the evening, we really did not receive too much help from him or the employees in shutting down the place. Of course, a couple of the employees that wex'e involved in the assault were taken away in amb,~iances. 'Fhey were taken for medical attention. Maybe he was short-handed because of this, but it was ver~- difficult to clear out the establishment because of the overcrowding and lack of help from therein. Approximately 15 to 20 minutes to do that alone. CHAIRMAN: Were there other situations where you might have been called as a police officer to this establishment and observed overcrowding? OFFICER GKATHWOHL: Not to inside of the establishment. But moro to is the parking problems. The cars parked, as Officer Tirelli stated, double parked in some instances and also parking and fsoing their own direction. For example parked eastbound in a westbound shoulder of the roadway, but not to inside as to overcrowding. CHAIRM~: Does anybody on the board have a question of Officer G~athwohi? Jim. MEMBER DINIZIO: No. CHAIRMAN: Lydia? MFAMBER TORTORA: No. Page 26 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June 7.~, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals MEMBER DOYEN: CHAIRMAN: MR. MEYER: CHAIRMAN: No. No. We thank you, siP. We thank you both. May I just ask one question? Through the Surely. Nil{. MEYER: Officer, at either of these occasions or any of these occasions, did you make a report of the overcrowding to the town fire inspector? ' OFFICER GRATHWOHL: No, I did not, sir. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Th~nk you very much gentlemen for coming in. I appreciate it ~mmensely. Have a nice evening. Ok, Mr. Meyer is there anything you would like to wrap up with here? MR. MEYER: Just briefly, sir, the mechanics. If you deny the special exception use, you d~min~.~h the value of the properly - the real estate. It loses its value. Practically speaking, it loses horrendous value because the bniJding is particularly constructed to be a bar. Not too many people live in houses or run stores that have uo windows. If we lose this use, my client was never been notified until May 8th or shortly thereafter of this problem, he loses the value of hi.q property. There is no other practical use to this property and I. hen he goes through a long and difficult process to reestablish the special exception use. With the Board which will be difficult, I think, because of the testimony that we have heard. If you allow us to use our leasehold rights as the landlord to protect our leasehold by imposing the staudards of our lease, and we have a tight lease with this tenant, we (:an protect our own property to your benefit. But when you take away the special exception Page 27 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June ~, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals use, you wipe out the landlord's value. What do you do to the tenant? I don't know. MEMBER TORTORA: What are you p~oposing? MI{. MEYER: What I'm proposing is that you allow the special exception use to continue for one year, and then we have an opportunity thl~ough our rights as the landlord to enforce conditions upon it which are in the lease. He is required by the lease to obey all your requirements. MEMBER TORTORA: What about our conditions? MR. MEYER: All your conditions, all requirements of all m,,nicipalities including the New York State Fire Code and every other code are written in, it's a Gilze form 185 lease with amendments. The printed part of the lease contains those requirements. MEMBER TORTORA: And how are you going to enforce it? Are you suggesting that you are going to enforce them? MR. MEYER: We can enforce them by either an action in the ejeetment or an action to terminate the lease and evict. MEMBER TORTORA: And how do we know that. Wlmt assurance do we have from you that you're going to. MR. MEYER: Because we have a couple of hundred thousand dollars at stake. We've got more money on the table here now than you can imagine. CHAIRMAN: Can I just ask a question but I'm going to pose it. mind is a sports bar? MR. MEYER: Ok. That's Hampton Bays formerly called has -large television sets, question. This is not a derogatory What is a sports bar? What in your a tough question. There's one over in the Pologrounds. It's a bar that usually plays loud music, has football games and Page 28 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June ~, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals baseball games on sometimes three, four, five television sets going at once. It's a place - it's an acronym given to a bar that's attended by people who are of athletic age, if you will. That leaves me out. I don't know about you folks. But in other words, the term 'sports bar' tends to designate the age ground that attends the bar. I don't think it has any other; that's a personal definition. CHAIRMAN: That's pretty good. MR. MEYER: I don't think it ha~ any other meaning. CHAIRI~N: Have you been inside this bar? MR. MEYER: Yes. I was there before and since. I was there when it wasa wreck standing on the highway. CHAIRMAN: What did you observe? MR. MEYER: I was in during the day. CHAIRMAN: What did you observe during the day? BOARD SECRETARY: Were there TV's there? MR. MEYER: No. I did not observe TV's. I was hlside the premi.~es; I can't remember whether there were TV's or not. I observed an empty bar. CHAIRMAN: Can I just tell you this. MR. MEYER: It was clean and in good repair. CHAIRMAN: We go back on this piece of -- MR. COUDREY: He has five TV's. CHAIRMAN: Yes, I understand. We go back on this piece of property when it was a house and when it became a restaurant. And prior to the addition that was made prior owner prior to your client, when I granted this Special Permit some 11 months ago as a yes vote, I don't like to compare drinking establishments in the Town to other drinking Page 29 - Hearing Trans.~ript Regular Meeting of June 3~, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals establishments in the Town. I could not agree with you more that sometimes activities in drinking establishments cause fights. Sometimes during parties or the Super Bowl there may be some excess pa~klng, but in my recollection I went with my fellow fire£ighters to this sports bar when there was not a great amount of people there.~ It was in the wee hours of the morning merely to observe the place. [t appeared to me to be a discotheque, all right, which i$~ 70's, 80's term, and it never gave me the feeling of what you represented in your representation of a sports bar to be. And that's what has concerned me for the past 11 months. Notwithstanding the other issues before this board, that's was concerned me. It was not necessarily ever deemed in my- mind from the day that I walked in there to be a sports bar, regardless of how many televisions he has or whatever the case might be. There was a DJ or thex'e was somebody opel~ating the machine. It was extremely loud. There were certain types of music which I could care less if that's what they enjoy listening to, I could care less. That's a person [reedom of their own rights to deal with. But that is the innate problem that exists here. It was not a sports bar. what concerns me. MR. MEYER: Excuse me. Or maximum occupancy of 75 people. And that's I defer to you, sir. MEMBER DOYEN: I just don't understand. You say you observed this operation § o'clock, 6 o'clock. I didn't hear you say that you observed that went on at 11 o'clock, or 2 o'clock and you keep saying, "You will see that the conditions of the special exception are met." Are you trying to say you're going to have somebody on the premises all the time that that sports bar is open? Is that wha~ you're trying to say? Page 30 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June ~, 1995 Southold Town Beard of Appeals MR. MEYER: No, sir. MEMBER DOYEN: Otherwise, how do you know what goes on if you go there at 5 o'clock, how can you say you know what gees on at 10 or 117 MR. MEYER: Well, it's as though I would ask you right now are there termites in your house? You wouldn't know unless you checked or unless somebody told you. We didn't know there was any problem. MEMBER DOYEN: That's no analogy. When you go, the termites are there 24 hours a day. If you go 5 o'clock in the afternoon, you can determine ff there termites. If you go by a bar at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, you don't know what's going on at 11 o'clock. MR. MEYER: No, I don't. And my purpose in goi~g by the bar' at 5 in the afternoon is to see that the premises, the realty was being well kept, that's my only purpose. MEMBER DOYEN: Yes, but you said that you're going to see that the conditions of the special exception are met. Didn't you say that? MR. MEYER: We are now on notice. MEMBER DOYEN: I'm just asking you. Then you plan to have somebody there the entire time that the operation is in progress? MR. MEYER: I wouldn't represellt to you that we'll have somebody there during every -~ MEMBER DOYEN: Then how do you know when you come in here and say they're not vioistjng the terms of the special exception? MR. MEYER: The way the IRS does. The IRS doesn't keep someone in your business 365 days a year. MEMBER DOYEN: Well then don't make a flat sta[ement that you are going to know what's going on 24 hours a day. Page 31 - Hearing Trans~cript Regular Meeting of June ~g, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals MR. MEYER: I did not say that, sir. MEMBER DOYEN: Well that's what you implied. MR. MEYER: We will inspect. MEMBER DOYEN: When are you going to in.~pect? MR. MEYER: At night, when it's open. MEMBER DOYEN: Right. But you didn't do that in the past. MR. MEYER: I'm an attorney. I represent a client. And on occasion I drove past the property, went in there and checked to rrmke sure the ~ estate was in good condition. MEblBER DOYEN: But not the conditions of the special exception. No, all right. That's what we're addressing here tonight. The special exception. MR. MEYER: Well I won't be here at 11, 12, one o'clock, but my client ia on notice that he has a substantial property right at risk at this point. MEMBER DOYEN: And I'm just asking yOU how is he going to do thl.q if you keep-- MR. MEYER: He's going to have to have people. Not me. My wife doesn't-- He's going to have to have people. MEMBER DOYEN: I can't argue - of course not, uniess he has somebody there representing them all the time you don't know when he's in violation of the speelal exception. MR. MEYER: They're going to have to have people th~.~re. MEMBER DOYEN: All right, but you did not say that before. MR. MEYER: And I think also that if there are p~.~ople, police officers, building inspectors, or fire inspectors in this town, there's a long paper trail regarding this site plan review and the owner has not changed since Page 32 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June,~g, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals that went in, and the property owner - my particular plea to you is that the property owner who has a significant monetary loss in front of them right now was never notified that he had a problem in the world until the 9th of May, 1995. MEMBER DOYEN: interest and that Excuse me for interrupting. If he has that much much involved, I should think Jle would take more interest in what was going on. ' MR. MEYER: Everything looked great. The property' looks great. MEMBER DOYEN: What looked great? What? MR. MEYER: Look at the building. The building-- MEMBER DOYEN: The building is not a violation when they exceed the limits of customers -CHAIRMAN: Can I just - you keep on referring to rights, Mr. Meyer, and I'm really - most people don't think I am, but I am a rights orientated person. Isn't there a laundry list of things that this building eau be utilized for under the zoning? MR. MEYER: Well, right now the building was bought - I don't know if my client wants me to reveal the price - but it was a significant price. It was before the real estate fell off the cliff out here. significant amount of money put in through renovating because the building was dilapidated. It was falling down. le~klng. It was an eye sore. And a great deal of money was put into renovating it. It was renovated toward a specific use. Now, if it's going to be used for something else - restaurant, et cetera, it hA~ to be completely renovated, entirely different scheme, lots more money. And frankly, you know, we're not the bank. We cml't do that. We've invested money. We got a tenant. The tenant said he was going to Thers was a the building The roof was Page 33 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June ~Y, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals comply, and the first knowledge that we had, and every indication that we have from our own investigation was as real property owners - and I am not an owner, but I mean on beb~lg of my client, that the property was being well-nmlnt~ined and that is the first sign, air, from my experience that things are going to hell in a basket is when the property starts looking shoddy, and I represent m~ny, ninny landownere and if I can drive around - not on purpose, I ddn't do thlg as a servic~ but if I'm going about my business and I passed a property owned by my client, let's say on the ~ain Read in Southampton. And I see the property looks fine, I remember that. If I go by and the window is broken, or something lJ~e that, next time I talk to him on the phone, he knows it. But we have no idea that we had a problem with ti~s b~Jlding until this meeting when the June 9th (Tth) meeting was called, and he went to that meeting. MEMBER TORTORA: You never checked on the lease. It never occurred to you to check on the lease? MR. MEYER: On what lease? MEMBER TORTORA: The lease with Mr. Cronshaw for the overflow parking. MR. MEYER: There was a written lease signed. And the fact that that lease was terminated, and no notice from Mr. Crenshaw. MR. COUDREY: He sent me a letter, excuse me please. CHAIRMAN: MR. MEYER: CHAIRMAN: MI{. COUDREY: You know in one short year it's successful business person no matter what you do. You have to tell us who you are for the -- This is Mr. Coudrey who is the Secretary of LKC. You're still under oath from the last meeting. hard to become a It's a learning Page 34 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June .3y, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals experience. I'm giving you my word - I had no km~wledge of stuff that went on at this club. The guy was paying me my rent. I passed by, the place was immaculate all the time. I had no real Pa~owledge of what was going on. I'm very concerned. CHAIRMAN: So are we. MR. COUDREY: If you don't know what is going on, it's hard to protect it. It's hard to address it. ~ know what's going on now. I told you I'm serious about look~,~g for property to accommodate the excess crowd, you know, the excess people that were coming there. The guy sends me a letter, you know, this is like operating with a shotgun over your head. The guy sends me a letter that it's for sale at $200,000. mean, is this America is? MEMBER TORTORA: What guy? MR. COUDREY: The guy next door, Joseph Crenshaw. He says, ~Xges. Ok. We bare a piece of property for sale. [['s $200,000 and you can, you knowon And that's how you operate a business with a gun at your head all the time? I mean, I'm seriously looking at property but you know, and I wanted to make it work, and I can respeet you guys. I have no animosity towards anyone of you. I just wanted a change to make it work and I need some time and I don't want you to throw the axe at this thing because I paid almost a half million bucks for this place. Ok. And I put another $25,000 into it to fix it up. It was a dump. And it looks better th~n any place on that damn block. And I need some time to m~ke it work. And tha£'s all I need. You know, you talk about bars. I don't like bars. I don't go to them. ! got four kids. I don't go to bars and drink. But, Page 35 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June 25, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals you know, you tell me there's a lot of people out here, a lot of town people that go to bars. Where are they going to drive, to Southampton, to F~.~t Hamptoll, Westhampton, spent 30 minutes, a half hour, an hour driving back dr~nk? So they go here. It's a lot closer. They're still going to go out and get drunk. I don't llke it. I don't like my kids going. But you know, close them all down. Don't just pick me and close me down. MEMBER TORTORA: The issue is not the type of establishment. I really want that very clear for the record and for your attorney and for yourself. The issue is not whether this is a bar or a restaurant. The issue is very simple. Have you complied with th~ terms of your permit? You have had 11 months to do so. Do you' h~{ve a lea~e in effect with Mr. Crenshaw to accommodate sufficient parking on that site and make this site a safe site? Do you have attendants? Have you had attendants? Have you enforced the 75 people occupancy on the premises? All the other things that you're telling me are really irrelevant. And as far a~ I'm concerned, it is your responsibility as the owner because a year ago you stood in this room and you assured thig Board that you would comply with the terms of this. You said, "Yes he will." "Yes, he will." "Yes, we will." You had no-- MR. COUDREY: I trusted James to do the right thing. If I have a lease with you and you say you're going to pay this much money and I'm going to cut the ]Lawn and I'm going to do this, I expect you to do it. I take you for face word. I trust you until you screw me. And.that's how I operate. Now I know, and I'm going to handle it a certain way. I'm Page 36 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June aY, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals going to ~ke sure everything is enforced. And I seem some time, I was not aware and this is not the gospel. I had no knowledge of that. You now, you're guilt - ignorance is 1~o excuse of the law, but still. Now I'm going to m~ke it work. And I need some time. MEMBER VILLA: Well, you know, we sat here last year and heard those same words. I need time and that's why we ended up giving you a year's time to prove yourself. And a year's time has come and gone and it ha.~n't proven to be a success as far as -- MR. COUDRIgY: Where did he go wrong other th~n the patrens. You know, he's not fighting. There's no citation again.~t him fighting. It's the people who go to the bars. They're the ones fighting. They're the ones throwing bottles. They're the ones doing drugs. MEMBER VILLA: You can take that same thing in any of the wars. It's not the president that's do the fighting it's the true ground troops. Who do you hold responsible? You have to hold the operator responsible. MR. COUDREY: I agree. But I'm saying, you have people doing drugs all over the place. I mean, how -- MEMBER VII,LA: Yes, but you don't have to create a situation where it makes it easier as - I mean, you've had a year's time. I mean you came here the last time and you said you made a bad investment, sort of speak, and you put a lot of money into this and you were looking for some relief and the beard was, I thought very generous at the time of giving you the permit. MR. COUDREY: One of the problems was parking, and I'm going to resolve that in the next month or so. I'm going to -- Page 37 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June ~, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals MEMBER VILLA: Well the thing that really startled me tonight is to hear the officer say that the parking on Bray Avenue was the worst spot. I mean, that's a little distance away and that's a side street. I mean that's not even the [~]~in Road. You're talkinH about the Msln Road and adjacent properties, Bray Avenue is a side street that is up the street a ways and that's strictly a residential area. If I lived on that street, I'd probably be having a fit. MR. COUDREY: You know, if you've got 75 or 100 people, and 200 people pull up, you have to disperse them, I agree. But I mean, you can't llke subconsciously tell me. You have to wait ctutil they got there and you have to go out and tell them. I mean~ how do you stop them. MEMBER VII.LA: If the police officers can't even control it and they almost have to call tow trucks, how are you going to contrel it? CHAIRMAN: I'm a little confused. I understmtd your attorney is representing you and you're referring to the specific rights that you have, ok, This board has never prejudiced anybody in the hl.qtory of the board. This gentleman has been on the Board for 44 years, ok and he has never prejudiced anybody. To my knowledgo. MEMBER DOYEN: Hopefully not (jokingly). CHAIRMAN: So if this Board is so inclined to deny this special permit, that doesn't mean that you don't have the right to come hack with another applicant. I assure that the i's will be dotted and the t's will be crossed, all right, but I don't see that - we're not holding you responsible for this situation other than the fact that we would have thought that you would have spent a more active involvement in overseeing the operation as a landlord. That's the only thing that we understood. Page 38 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June ~, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals Based upon my conversations last year when we made that decision by special meeting by the way just to accommodate your client, in you remember, and yourself. MR. COUDREY: Jerry, if someone were to pick up the phone in October, November or in any month, I would have been in your office in five minutes. CI-L~IRMAN: But remember, we are not the elxforcing agency. MR. COUDREY: I agree but I believe everything is fine until I walked in that day of the meeting and opened the folder, and you gave me a bunch of papers and I started reading them. A lot of them are accident reports and I'm going to myself, why are they bJnming James for a lot of stuff. And I'm read{lng on, and readin~ on, you know, I had no knowledge of anything in this folder. Now I do. I mean, so if you don't know of something or if you think everything is blue and it tUlqlS out green, I didn't know of anything that was w~ong with thi.~ club. That's why I didn't take action. MEMBER TORTORA: When we sent you the letter on May llth, one of the major incidents happened right on the 25th of May, so when we sent you that letter, what did you do then? Betweel] May llth and our meeting? MR. COUDREY: I don't have the letter in front of me -- MEMBER TORTORA: It's right here. Here's a copy of it right here. Do you want to see it? CHAIRMAN: Why don't you go over that with your attorney for a couple of minutes. We'll see if somebody else wants to speak and we won't close the hearing until - to give you a little time. Is there anybody else in Page 39 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June ~g, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals the audience that would really Like to speak in favor or against thi.~? Yes, ma'am. Just state your name for the record. How are you tonight? KATHLEEN DF.I,ANEY: My name is Kathleen Delaney. And I represent a group e. alled Concerned Parents, The reason I'm here tonight as a parent basically, I feel that Ocean City has become a draw for additional cril~e, violence and dl~tgs in our town and we have enough problems as it is. I'm concerned - you know, a lot of this I didn't know , and tonight listening to 39 police reports whether it was theft, or noise or whatever it was, 39 incidents is a lot in 11 months. I don't - I would hope to think tb~t has not happened to our other establishments around here. It sounds way out of whack to me. We do have'a sports bar which is Legends. We have - there's one in Wading River. Sports bars do not have girls dancing in cages. I undere~nd and someone can correct me if I'm wrong that the name is Ocean City, but I hear that sometimes on Friday and Saturday it's called either X-tasy or X-thon or something like that. That bothers me as a parent. I don't like what goes on. I pass there at 10:00 at night and it's not crowded and maybe coming home at 2:00 o'clock in the morning there are many cars parked all over the place. I would not like to live on Bray Avenue. I'm glad I don't. We t~lk about property value here tonight. What the property value of the residents down that block. Those fights can continue down the block, of residences. Everything bothers me about this pisc~.~. Listening to the landlord tonight, [ would have liked had he said he was more of an active landlord. If he wasn't, he's at fault. But I tblnk it's the tenant that's the problem. Maybe he should look to get a tenant that operas a Page 41 - Hearing Transgript Regular Meeting of June ,,~, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals is this? He said, "WeU that's how we got passed. They had to have the sign up." So that, yes, extremes. The cage dancers. Hey, you know, boat. That one way or another doesn't thrill me. We got our permits. you can go different whatever floats your But if I had $600,000 tied up in a building, I damn well would be there making sure that the tenant was there and keeping it coat, because if I knew I had a year to be in compliance and I started having problems, you know - I would have $600,000 to lose plus whatever your revenues are co~ning in. As far as the 39 reports, like we said, some are different kind~ of incidents, but I know from personal experience that we haven't been to any place - I don't know if we have been to any of the total bars in thi~; town, 39 times this year. Naturally you have people together, you have drinking - you're going to have some problems. We have had a few problems. My main concern as an officer in the PBA is the safety of my members. And when I had to call out for help for the first time in nine years, that meant I was scared - and my sergeant knew it and the guys I work with knew it. That was probably one of the most scariest experiences in my life that I had 150 people standing around yelling, "Get him." But llke I said, they are pros and cons. If he's going to supervise it a little better, maybe he could get another shot. But, you know, your having fights with knives involved. You're having the inc'ident with the fight with the guy who got the beer bottle broken over head. The kid that was hit w~s 19 and told me that he had been served at the bar. There had been S.L.A. referrals sent in. What the State Liquor Authority does, that's up to them. That's their own separate entity up there. That's a separate investigation. You know, maybe something ~lse could be worked Page 42 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June ~, ]99§ Southold Town Board of Appeals out. Maybe a shorter term for the thing. The parking is definitely a problem. I mean, if anybody tries to go down Bray Avenue, it's atrocious. Tb~nk you. CB_&IRbiAN: That's almost an impossible road to park on either side also. OFFICER TIRET.LI: You can't park on one side. MEMBER TORTOIL~: Thank you very much. CIiAIRMAN: ThAnk you. Anybody else. Ok. We'll go back to the owner. Is there something you would like to ~ay? Mit. COUDREY: I received the first two pages (of the May 11, 1995 letter from the ZBA), and then I was - these two pa~es. And I read this down here. MI~IBER TORTORA: So you knewthere was a problem on the-- MR. COUDREY: On this (building inspector's memo rsfersnce). Yes. On May 11th. Yes, and I called J~mes and he told me that his wife was into the bar and got drunk and got, you know, a d.w.i, and that's why it's driving him Crazy. And that's what he told me on the second letter. CHAIRMAN: All right. We are at this particular time - I'm going to request a short caucus of the board and something wt~' don't do too often, and we will come back and reconvene and probably recess the hearing unlil July 12th. That's the purpose of the caucus. MR. COUDREY: Can I say one more thing. If ! can get additional parking, would that be a strong consideration? CHAIRM~: What would be a strong consideration would be the policing, would be - this is now and for the future. The Town is small enough that we know people in all of these establishments, all right. We've had Quiet Man when that was in opel~ation over here which has literally almost Page 43 - liearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June ~l~, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals no place to park. They wanted to put an addition on which would have taken their parking away. Unfortunately, because of situations between husbands and wives that bar is not operating. I'm talking about from a businessnmn's point of view I'm not referring to as a member of the board. The owner of Legend's which is a sports bar in New Suffolk is a gentleman that I grew up, Dennis Harkoff, and him wife Diane. In fact her brother is a person~l friend if mine. We've had variance applications after the granting by certain agencies in this town of proper permits to allow him to operate both his bar and his restaurant. I have been down there at 7:30 in the morning. You don't remember, but I saw you at 6:45 this morning, ok, yes, in Patchogue in an establishment. I do things all the time at my own whim. I had to meet Mr. Harkoff at 7:30 in the morning. He had a full cleaning crew goi,~g through his entire establishment. Before he left at 2 or 2:30, or 3 o'clock in the morning, he scoured the parking lot with the bartenders and picked up every beer bottle that was left outside. Not one left the place. Not one single beer bottle left the place because he made sure. That was somebody that came to his establishment and dumped the beer bottles out of their car, or wine bottles, or any kind of bottles. They could have been soda c~n.~ or whatever. He runs a tight operation. Those are the types of things that I thought were going to be the nature of this situation here. And if you compare and I'm not comparing but if you look at thc situation, you have 21 spaces - really 15 with employees. He has literally none, except for what he parks across the street with a co-mutual agreement which is now perpendicular parking. And yes, there have been incidents. There's an occasional fight or whatever the case might be. But when you go into Page 44 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June ~, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals to hi.~ place, you are able to see the tv, you are able to hear the music and you are able to zero in. If you say to him, could I please watch such and such, he will zero that tv in for you for the period of time that you are in that bar. I guess the word 'disco' is not the proper word. It really is a Ilight club and I appreciate that and tha['s what concerns me concerning this establishment, all right - the overcrowding, the incidents, the parking. Those are ali issues that have to be addressed. So parking is not one shlgle independent issue. There are issues tbat violate, in my opinion, not the opinion of my fellow board members, health, safety and welfare of thi.~ town. And that's not what I want to see. And that's the crux in order issue that I was referl-ing to as an analogy. That's it. BOARD SECRETARY: I just wanted to ask you not to caucus unless you caucus right here to decide whether to close the hearing. It would be best if we caucused right here. CHAIRMAN: I was going to caucus in the office. Ok. CHAIRMAN: So I'll offer a resolution to take a five or ten ~linutes caucus and we'll reconvene. MEMBER VILLA: Seconded. BOARD SECRETARY: Is this hearing recessed at this point? CHAIRMAN: No, no. Just held in abeyance. BOARD SECRETARY: Well it's recessed if it's held in abeyance, right? CHAIRMAN: Yes well it's recessed for whatever period of time, we'll act on the recess. BOARD SECRETARY: It's 'all on the record. Page 45 - Hearing Transcript Regular Meeting of June ~, 1995 Southold Town Board of Appeals CHAIRMAN: Yes. It's recessed for the temporary period of time that we're going to discuss this. BOARD SECRETARY: Other members sound like they are ready to close the hearing. CHAIRMAN: All in favor. Ayes. The board took a five ~ninutes break and returned. CHAIRMAN: I'd like to make a motion reconvening the hearing. MEMBER TORTORA: Second. AYES: Ail Members. CHAIRMAN: I'd like to make a motion closing the hearing amd reserving decision until later. MEMBER TORTORA: AYES: All Members. Second. The hearing was declared closed (concluded). CHAIRMAN: Ok, just for everybody's benefit, all we did close the hearing at that point, and we will deliberate. You're welcome to hnrxg around and we are out of the recorded session, sort of speak. The Chni~-man continued with the next agenda item at thi.~ point - Brewers Yacht Yard at Greenport, Inc. under resolutions. End of hearing. Recorded and typed by Linda Kowaiski, Secretary Board of Appeals