THE QUEENS
SEPTEMBER 2020
Queens senator calls on SLA to restore all liquor license removals
BY ANGÉLICA ACEVEDO
aacevedo@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
Senator Jessica Ramos returned to the
New York State Liquor Authority’s (SLA)
headquarters on Th ursday, Sept. 3, to call
for the agency to restore all the liquor
licenses it has removed from New York
City restaurants and bars as well as drop
all suspensions.
“Th e way to help these small businesses
is not by suspending their license and
closing them down,” said Ramos. “Th e
way to help the businesses is to provide
clear guidance so that we can help them
comply if there’s any confusion, so that
they can continue operating and they can
continue providing us with good food,
entertainment and, more importantly,
good jobs for our communities.”
Ramos — who along with two dozen
state senators wrote a letter demanding
SLA stop hitting businesses with “excessive
fi nes” last week — was joined by
Uptown Manhattan Assembly member
Carmen De La Rosa, Jackson Heights
Assembly candidate Jessica González-
Rojas and several local restaurant and bar
owners.
Two weeks ago, Ramos led another
press conference at the Adam Clayton
Powell Jr. State Offi ce Building with more
than 30 Queens and Manhattan business
owners to speak out against what they say
has been harassment from the SLA in the
months when eateries were allowed to
reopen for outdoor dining.
Th e SLA has fi led 708 charges for liquor
license removals against establishments in
NYC, 207 (or 29 percent) of which are in
Queens, as of Friday, Sept. 4. Manhattan
accounts for half of the charges, according
to the SLA.
The agency has also filed 168
Emergency Summary Suspensions, which
are imposed when the SLA fi nds the continued
operation of a licensed business
threatens public health and safety.
Businesses that are subjected to an
emergency suspension are entitled to
an expedited hearing before an SLA
Administrative Law Judge.
SLA spokesperson William Crowley
told QNS thesuspensions are “used sparingly,
and only in the worst cases — that’s
why 50,000 inspections have led to under
1,000 charges and just 168 suspensions.”
But De La Rosa, who represents
Washington Heights, said restaurant and
bar owners in certain communities are
receiving “targeted enforcement” from the
SLA.
“Why are they targeting our businesses?
Because they serve communities of color,
because they serve vulnerable communities,
under the guise of safety,” De La Rosa
said. “We visited many establishments in
Upper Manhattan, and these businesses
are trying their very best every single
day to not only serve their communities,
many of them never closed their doors
during a global pandemic. Let’s talk about
essential workers.Th ese people were part
of food delivery operations, of mutual aid
operations when our communities were
dying. Th ey are trying to survive. Th is is
not about safety, this is about revenue.”
González-Rojas, who won the primary
race for Assembly District 34, said her
district’s majority-immigrant owned businesses
“are suff ering from the burden” of
SLA fi nes.
“We are in the district that was deeply
impacted by COVID,” González-Rojas
said. “Th ere’s a restaurant down the street
from my home, I live right off Northern
Boulevard, and I witnessed it getting shut
down for days due to fi nes. I witness
another restaurant get a $1,500 fi ne without
any proof — and when they ask for
proof they got a grainy photo that shows
nothing. Th is is unjust.”
Ramos said about 31 businesses in her
district have experienced “harassment
and threats by undercover agents, members
of a task force, the state sheriff s, and
the Departments of Transportation and
Environmental Protection.”
Kae Burke and Anya Sapozhnikova,
co-founders of Brooklyn’s House of Yes,
a nightclub and arts space, were there to
talk about their liquor license suspension
a week ago.Th ey said they were given a list
from SLA on what to improve.
“We did make the changes, we did try
to rectify the situation, and they still suspended
our license,” said Burke. “Th at is
not justice; it’s not helpful. Th at does not
keep our communities safe. All that does
is destroy a business that was completely
compliant with all of the guidelines. It’s
heartbreaking to see our friends all of a
sudden, surprise, unemployed again.”
Abby Ehmann, owner of Lucky, a bar on
the East Village, said she recently got her
liquor license suspended shortly aft er she
started a petition, “Seating Not Eating,”
calling on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to reverse
his Executive Order mandating restaurant
and bars have to serve food item with
alcoholic beverage. Th e petition has surpassed
5,000 signatures.
Ehmann’s lawyer,Wylie Stecklow, argues
that while Cuomo’s executive orders have
eff ectively slowed the spread, they are not
always easy to understand or enforce.
“Even before COVID, they were
looked at by the Department of Health,
Department of Buildings, the Fire
Department, as well as the State Liquor
Authority. Th ese businesses know they
have to comply with a myriad of rules and
regulations that are hard to understand,”
said Stecklow. “Executive Order 202.52, it
is so undistinguishable, it does not defi ne
itself, that theTh e SLA has set up 10 question
and answers on their own website
trying to explain what this one small executive
order means.”
President of the New York State Latino
Restaurant and Bar Association Jeff rey
Garcia joined many businesses and elected
offi cials across the city in calling for a
clear path for NYC to bring back indoor
dining.
“Our restaurants know they should be
wearing masks, cleaning tables and following
all these rules, but there are a lot
of things in place that’s a hindrance as
well,” said Garcia. “Like the rule that business
have to control what’s going on 100
feet from their businesses — they’re not
cops. Just trying to control people inside
your businesses is diffi cult enough during
these very diffi cult times, because even
customers, even though we’ve been dealing
with this for months, are not always
used to putting on a mask right away.
Yet an investigator can walk in as a person’s
walking to the bathroom, and you
lose your license over a free mask? It’s just
not fair.”
Ramos agrees that indoor dining should
come back, saying that as a mother of two,
she’s more worried about what in-person
school protocols will look like in the fall.
“We’re going to be allowing a third of
the student population to go into schools
with little to no protocols,” she said. “I
do not subscribe to these concerns about
indoor dining when we are being hypocrites
in New York state and allowing
everybody but New York City to reopen
at a small capacity and now we’re behind
New Jersey as well.”
Ramos and Assembly memberYuh-Line
Niou, who represents Chinatown, previously
called for better outreach and for
guidance to be given to business owners
in several diff erent languages.
“As of yet, the SLA has been unable to
provide clear guidance in one place as to
what rules and protocols our restaurants
must follow,” said Ramos. “None of this
information is available in any language
other than English. Th e SLA is still deputizing
state employees from other agencies
who are not trained in liquor authority
law and are not culturally competent …
because they don’t live in our neighborhoods
and understand our communities.”
Suspended licenses may cost business
owners anywhere from $4,000 to $50,000,
depending on “egregiousness of the conduct.”
Th e maximum penalty the SLA
could hand down is revoking a liquor
license.
For fi rst time Executive Order violations
involving less egregious conduct,
the SLA generally accepts fi nes anywhere
from $1,500 and $4,000, with the maximum
being $10,000 per charge.
Ramos added that it is not clear where
the fi nes that SLA collects are going.
Crowley maintains the SLA and
Cuomo’s task force for a safe reopening
are acting in order keep the public safe
during the pandemic. He said thanks to
the task force and responsible business
owners, the SLA is seeing a 97 percent
compliance rate.
He noted all fi nes, in addition to all
licensing revenue collected by the SLA,
are remitted to the state’s General Fund
— the major operating fund for the state,
which provides funding for schools,
healthcare and other services.
“Th e SLA has had uniform standards
for bars and restaurants from day one —
posted publicly on our website — andthey
have been on the books for months,”
Crowley stated. “Let’s be clear: we only
suspend licenses in the most egregious
cases of non-compliance, which is why
nearly 50,000 inspections have led to just
168 suspensions.… We will continue to
take a smart approach tocompliance —
working with businesses that truly want
to keep New Yorkers safe, while taking
strong action against the small number
who willfully violate coronavirus-related
regulations, placing both lives and New
York’s re-opening at risk.”
Photo by Angélica Acevedo
State Senator Jessica Ramos on Thursday, Sept. 3.
link
link
