Source: Google Maps
A less-than-heimishe nightclub is eager to open for business in the heart of Gravesend, but Orthodox residents in the area do not want any of their crazy tsures, Vos Iz Neias is reporting.
The business, called Pleasure, would be situated on the corner of Avenue U and East 9th Street, within a stone’s throw from the “Torah Academy of Brooklyn, a boys yeshiva high school…numerous shuls, a kosher pizzeria and a school bus stop utilized by several yeshivos and Bais Yaakovs [girls yeshivas].”
The upscale restaurant and lounge would replace an identical establishment with the same name and at the same location, which Community Board 15 Chairperson Theresa Scavo railed against initially, calling the first incarnation of Pleasure “a detriment to the quality of life in this neighborhood.”
“There were fights, drunken lewdness, double and triple parking, noise till all hours of the morning,” she said, adding that there were also “violations issued by the local precinct for sale of alcohol to minors, disorderly conduct and so much more.”
“There is no reason that people here should have to put up with this,” said the staunch opponent of the area’s more sordid establishments, including various nightclubs and hookah bars.
Assemblyman Steve Cymbrowitz similarly does not mince words on the track record of the previous owners of 816 Avenue U, not only stating that Pleasure was “a plague on the community, generating numerous criminal court summonses, alcohol violations and complaints from neighboring residents,” but that they should uncontrovertibly be denied a liquor license.
A New York Magazine “Nightlife” review of Pleasure, before it was closed the first time, described it as thus:
If your pleasure is dancing to house music with leggy Russian women, then take a trip beyond the mausoleum-marble exterior of this mini-nightclub. Even weekdays and Sunday when the cover charge disappears and the door policy relaxes, D.J. s like Mityay lay down Russian club bangers, hip-hop, and tribal music for a crowd-favoring track pants over skinny black jeans. From a vine-festooned ceiling, lasers beam Jackson Pollock squiggles on the modest hardwood dance floor while projectors add flower silhouettes. Fans perched next to the disco balls keep it cool when the place gets packed on weekends, but most guys go shirtless anyway to show off their six-pack abs. True exhibitionists should forgo the hydraulic stools at the bar for a white leather couch parked in front of a bottle table. That small raised catwalk is used for live performances, Russian karaoke included. — Daniel Maurer
Alrighty then! My feelings aside, I am pretty sure the Rebbe would not approve.
Members of the mostly Jewish residential community feel denial of the establishment’s liquor license is the first step in ensuring the nightclub does not come to fruition. Residents are now banding together and further entreating their neighbors to “preserve the kedusha [the Hebrew word for holiness] of our neighborhood” by requesting they barrage the New York State Liquor authority with letters and phone calls of strong objection.
A decision is expected to be made today.
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