« Building Inspectors Tour Atlantic Yards In Brooklyn During Construction Safety Week | Main | Numbers up: The New York Times Is Counting Wealthy Chinese, In A Too-Short Story »

April 27, 2011

Another Sports Bar Showdown Near Barclays

On Monday locals bashed a bar on Pacific Street that would cater to crowds bound for Brooklyn Nets games.

Park Slope Patch
by Stephen Brown

Thanks to the geniuses who thought it was a good idea to override city zoning and allow an arena to be built in the midst of residential neighborhoods, residents of Park Slope, Prospect Heights and Fort Greene are going to get plenty of practice fighting liquor license applications.

Prime 6 was only the tip of the iceberg.

Hot off the heels of a fight over one sports bar near the Barclays Center, a new showdown is brewing between locals and the owner of a second bar that will cater to sports fans going to Brooklyn Nets games.

The owners of a Manhattan restaurant want to open Player’s Gastro Pub and Sportsbar on Pacific Street at Flatbush Avenue, which would seat 150 people and be open until 4 a.m. every night.

But on Monday residents at a meeting of Community Board 6 scoffed at the notion of the sports bar on their block.

“To have five or six bars in one area, you get to a tipping point and suddenly you have Bourbon Street in Brooklyn,” said Harry Lipman, a lawyer who was instrumental in the previous sports bar battle in Park Slope. “You have people coming out of a game at 10 p.m. or so — they already had a couple of beers, then they get more drunk, then they’re fumbling for car keys — it’s potentially loud and boisterous.”

article

Related coverage...

The Brooklyn Paper, Slopers fight Barclays bar war on second front

A fiery group of neighbors stormed a Community Board 6 meeting on Monday night to rage against the proposed “Players Gastropub and Sports Bar,” which seeks to serve alcohol until 4 am across the street from the rising arena on Pacific Street at Flatbush Avenue.

It would be the closest drinking establishment to a venue that is expected to draw 19,000 sports fans per night.

“I don’t want fans coming out and pissing on our neighborhood,” said Jon Crow, a longtime advocate of nightlife limits in Park Slope. “People looking to drink until three or four in the morning are already three sheets to the wind.”

Residents of the once-hardscabble, “Fortress of Solitude”-esque block said they don’t want to go back to the bad old days.

“We’ve fought long and hard to bring stability to the block,” said Syble Henderson, of the East Pacific Street Block Association. “We don’t want a business that’s potentially disruptive.”

Posted by eric at April 27, 2011 9:24 AM