The Vanderbilt Pub Crawl: How Many is Too Many?

Pop quiz: How many bars are there on Vanderbilt Avenue in Prospect Heights?

If you answered six, or seven, or eight, you are too low. As of this writing, there are ten, and Brooklyn Community Board 8 last spring approved an application for an eleventh bar. (The figure includes restaurants with permits to serve liquor, but do not include restaurants with permits for beer and wine only.)

I enjoy a draft now and then, and I have even on occasion found it convenient that some of these establishments serve food late into the night. I’m also glad to see storefronts on Vanderbilt fill in with businesses that attract people to the avenue in the evening. However, it’s fair to ask whether the prospect of having more bars on Vanderbilt Avenue is the best way to realize the potential of Prospect Heights’ main street to improve community life for its residents.

Bars and restaurants can be lucrative tenants, which might be positive for landlords in the short term, but it may also limit the neighborhood’s ability to attract other types of businesses over the long term. Vanderbilt once had a hardware store, a florist and a butcher (yes, the butcher was a few years back). A small pharmacy or a stationery store would also be convenient for neighborhood residents. Diversity among businesses on Vanderbilt Avenue adds stability to the neighborhood, and also attracts pedestrian traffic during different hours of the day and night, helping to make the street safer and more vibrant. It’s harder to argue that increasing the density of bars on Vanderbilt benefits community residents.

The New York State Liquor Authority agrees. The New York State Alcoholic Beverage Control law has a provision barring the issuance of a liquor license to an applicant proposing a new bar within 500 feet of three existing bars—unless there is a compelling public interest in granting the application. In these cases, the “public interest” is to be determined in “consultation with the local municipality or the community board.”

What would constitute a public interest? As an example, Manhattan Community Board 3, which covers the Lower East Side with the highest concentration of bars in New York City, has defined a public benefit as one which provides: a good or service that is in need by the community; unique goods or services not already in the community; or cultural enrichment, including increased retail diversity.

Manhattan CB3 has further stated that a public benefit should enhance the quality of life of residents and be a “stabilizing force” in the community. It's a reasonable approach. CB3’s guidelines recommend that applications that would violate the 500 foot rule without demonstrating a public benefit be rejected.

The Economic Development Committee of Brooklyn Community Board 8 reviews applications for full liquor licenses and makes recommendations to the SLA to approve or reject them under the provisions of the ABC law. Although there are already several situations of bars which violate the 500 foot rule on Vanderbilt Avenue, CB8 has not rejected an application for a liquor license on Vanderbilt Avenue at any time in recent memory. But it’s not all CB8’s fault. As CB8 Chair Nizjoni Granville explained to me, “The Committee has been recommending applications for liquor licenses on Vanderbilt Avenue for years.  No one from the neighborhood has ever come to the meeting to complain.”

Now, with the opening of Barclays Center little more than a year away (and with an 1,100 car parking lot coming to the foot of Vanderbilt Avenue), it’s time for residents to speak up about the future of Vanderbilt Avenue. Terrific progress has been made in recent years calming traffic, creating a more attractive streetscape for pedestrian use of the avenue, and preserving the historic character of the avenue’s buildings. The success of new arrivals like an artisanal ice cream parlor, a bagel shop and others shows that Vanderbilt can support diverse types of businesses. As a neighborhood, Prospect Heights must engage CB8 and develop a policy with respect to new applications for liquor licenses that ensures that Vanderbilt Avenue will continue to thrive as a main street for all of Prospect Heights, and not simply become a concentration point for drinking establishments.

The next meeting of CB8’s Economic Development Committee will take place on Tuesday, September 6, 2011 at 6:30PM and will be held at the Center For Nursing and Rehabilitation, 727 Classon Avenue at Park Place. New and renewal applications for liquor licenses on Vanderbilt Avenue are on the agenda.