Community Corner

Electeds Try to Put the Brakes on Barclays Center Liquor License

Officials claim mega-arena doesn't have necessary community approval to proceed.

City and state elected officials demanded that the Barclays Center's liquor license application be sent back to the drawing board in a strongly-worded letter sent Thursday to the State Liquor Authority.

The move by several Brooklyn lawmakers comes as the SLA prepares to hold a public meeting on June 14 in Manhattan on the arena's application.

The letter calls on the SLA to break Barclays' liquor application into separate requests in order to ensure that no alcohol sales are allowed after 2 a.m. in any part of the arena—including premium seating and luxury boxes.

Find out what's happening in Fort Greene-Clinton Hillwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Meanwhile, an online petition created by Brooklyn Speaks demanding more public accountability in regards to Barclays' liquor sales has attracted more than 1,300 signatures.

Here is the full text of the letter sent to SLA chairman Dennis Rosen and SLA commissioner Jeanique Greene:  

Find out what's happening in Fort Greene-Clinton Hillwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Dear Chairman Rosen and Commissioner Greene:

We are writing to urgently ask that above application be immediately divided and that the license applications regarding premium seating areas, luxury suites, clubs, restaurants, and any other tiered service variances for all events be returned to Brooklyn Community Boards 2 and 6 for due consideration.

In a letter to Community Board 6 dated June 5, 2012, William Schrieber, a lawyer for Barclays Center developer Forest City Ratner revealed for the first time that the operator intends to continue to serve alcohol to patrons seated in premium seating and luxury boxes for an hour after events, up to a maximum last call of 2 a.m. This information was not provided to either of the Community Boards during their deliberations, as required by statute. Whether this was deliberate or an oversight, the application is seriously flawed by this omission

Conversations with various Community Board members and personnel indicate they believed they were being asked to consider license restrictions primarily for NBA games, as was presented by the applicant to a joint hearing of the CBs 2 & 6 licensing committees held on April 10, 2012, videos of which are easily available on the internet. During this presentation the applicant indicated a willingness to abide by licensing and serving guidelines common in many other NBA facilities and never indicated that other serving hours and protocols were being considered for other Arena events or for different seating areas within the Arena. The members and personnel with whom we have spoken have indicated that had the applicant provided this information the Community Boards may have crafted different stipulations.

The applicant is proposing that potentially 5,400 patrons would be consuming alcohol until 2 a.m., and then exiting the Arena in residential neighborhoods, a process that may take until 3 a.m. The Community Boards deserve to review these recently revealed proposals and craft stipulations in the best interest of their areas.

In light of these recent revelations we respectfully ask that you divide the application and return the applications for premium seating areas, luxury boxes, clubs, restaurants, and any other tiered service variances for all events to Brooklyn Community Board 2 and Brooklyn Community Board 6.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this serious matter.

Senator Velmanette Montgomery
18th Senate District

Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries
57th Assembly District

Assemblywoman Joan Millman
52nd Assembly District

Assemblyman James Brennan
44th Assembly District

Councilwoman Letitia James
35th NYC Council District


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

More from Fort Greene-Clinton Hill