This Drama Stars the Drinks
July 29, 2007
By DAN LEVIN
If all the world really were a stage, Louis Salamone would have no problem getting a liquor license for his new theaters on Bleecker Street, near Mulberry Street.
But many local residents fear that all the world between the Bowery and Broadway north of Houston Street is fast becoming one long bar crawl, and contend that adding yet another place that sells alcohol will produce even more in the way of drunken crowds and late-night rowdiness.
“We are worried that it would be a camouflage for a cabaret and nightclub setting, which we all know is the predominant activity in Lower Manhattan,” said Zella Jones, president of the NoHo Neighborhood Association. The group opposes Mr. Salamone’s effort to sell liquor, and wants beer and wine sales limited to specific areas and times.
Mr. Salamone, executive director of a production company that also owns two Off Broadway houses, plans to open his new performance space, the Theaters at 45 Bleecker Street, in September.
“For a theater to survive, it can’t just be a theater,” Mr. Salamone said. He cited both soaring rents — he pays about $50,000 a month for two floors in a mustard-colored, six-story brick building — and the plight of the building’s previous tenant, the Culture Project, which left in December because of financial problems.
“We’re theater people, not nightclub people or restaurateurs,” Mr. Salamone added. “But the bottom line is we need additional sources of revenue, mainly drinks, a little food, to add to our income.”
Since May, he has been negotiating with local residents to gain the support of Community Board 2. Though the board’s endorsement is only advisory, it carries weight with the State Liquor Authority.
Mr. Salamone has said he is willing to sell only beer and wine; to close at 1 a.m. on weekends, two hours earlier than he initially planned; and to provide a roped-off area in front of the theater to prevent street crowding at showtime. In exchange, he wants permission to operate a concession stand in the lobby and to sell drinks in a downstairs theater.
“I don’t want to fight with my neighbors for 10 years,” he said. “I want them to be my customers.”