Notes From The 94th Precinct Community Council Meeting

It was packed at last night’s Community Council meeting. If I had to guesstimate I’d say there were at least 100 people present. Many of whom were residents and/or business owners from Franklin Street, along with a camera woman from Channel 12, a community liaison from Joseph Lentol’s office and a “representative” from the Production Lounge.

Although a cake congratulating Officer Fulton for his promotion to Deputy Inspector was in the offering, all eyes, ears, minds and most importantly mouths were intent on discussing last weekend’s incident at the Production Lounge And I’ll tell you: all the people present (save perhaps two) be they old timers, newbies, 30-somethings with children or simply concerned citizens were very, very angry. What I found most interesting was that although the gun play at the Production Lounge (and how the police handled it) was the subject of the entire meeting, it was in reality a proxy for a number of quality of life issues which have been festering in Greenpoint for some time. These included but were not limited to:

• The proliferation of bars on Franklin Street.
• The increase in noise and disorderly activity which has come as a result of the previous.
• Dissatisfaction with the 94th Precinct’s response to complaints.
• Club Exit.
• Allegations that 311 is fudging the number of complaints being called in.

Disturbing allegations that the ownership of The Production Lounge did not care about the nuisance it was posing to its neighbors (and in fact encouraged it) also arose. As did some incidences which would be best described as harassment or outright intimidation. But enough preliminaries. Follows is my footage from the meeting. Draw your own conclusions.

Part I

Part II

Part III

I’ll be adding more footage from this meeting as YouTube (and my sheer will power) sees fit.* In the meantime those of you who have been affected negatively by The Production Lounge (or any other watering hole in Greenpoint or north Brooklyn in general) can and should contact the following:

State Assemblyman Joseph Lentol
619 Lorimer Street
Brooklyn, NY 11211
(718) 383 – 7474
lentolj (at) assembly (dot) state (dot) ny (dot) ny (dot) us

Councilman David Yassky (When this was suggested at the meeting a number of people shouted in unison “He’s useless!” But who knows?)
114 Court Street
Brooklyn, New York 11201
(718) 875 – 5200
yassky (at) council (dot) nyc (dot) ny (dot) us

My good friend over at Neighborhood Threat has already pointed that out all noise complaints should be tendered to 311. Take down the complaint number(s) and hand them over to our local Community Board via email…

Community Board 1
435 Graham Avenue
Brooklyn , New York, 11211
(718) 389 – 0009
Fax: (718) 389 – 0098
Email: bk01 (at) cb (dot) nyc (dot) gov

And last, but hardly least, you can also file a complaint to the New York State Liquor Authority. Here’s a snippet of their online complaint form.

Given what I heard from last night’s meeting I suspect complaint boxes two and six will be very useful. It might also strike some as interesting that The Production Lounge has neither a Place of Assembly permit nor Certificate of Occupancy. In other words, they have no right to have people (much less those brandishing firearms)  in 113 Franklin Street in the first place. Don’t believe me? Go to the Department of Buildings web site and see for yourself.**

Miss Heather

*You can watch the final two installments by clicking here.

**Oh yeah: it should come as no surprise to my fellow Greenpointers that the Production Lounges has no cabaret license either. Sound familiar, anyone?

P.S.: There’s much more piquant commentary about last night’s proceedings to be found on Yelp.