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Neighborhood Group Wants Halftime Cutoff for Booze Sales at Nets Games

The new Barclays Center is slated to open in the fall of 2012.
The new Barclays Center is slated to open in the fall of 2012.
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DNAinfo/Ben Fractenberg

PARK SLOPE — A neighborhood group is calling on the brand-new Barclays Center to stop selling booze at an hour when some New Yorkers are just getting ready to go out for the night — 10 p.m.

More than 1,200 people have signed an electronic petition backed by the neighborhood group Brooklyn Speaks demanding that liquor sales at the 18,000-seat arena halt either at "halftime at an NBA game, 45 minutes before the end of an event, or at 10 p.m. — whichever comes first."

The group started collecting the signatures on May 7 and hopes to present "thousands" of signatures to the State Liquor Authority when it reviews the Barclays Center's liquor license application. That's expected to happen at a hearing in June, said Brooklyn Speaks member Gib Veconi.

The Brooklyn Nets new logo was unveiled at a Modell's sporting goods store across the street from the Barclays Center.
The Brooklyn Nets new logo was unveiled at a Modell's sporting goods store across the street from the Barclays Center.
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DNAinfo/Ben Fractenberg

"They're looking for a very very significant license there, and it needs some guard rails," he explained. "The SLA gets an application like this maybe every 10 or 20 years. This is not a run-of-the-mill application. They’re going to serve up to 18,000 people, and they all leave the building at the same time."

A typical New York liquor license allows for booze sales until 4 a.m., but many NBA arenas halt alcohol sales after the game's third quarter — a rule that the Barclays Center intends to follow, a spokesman said.

Park Slope's Community Board 6 recently voted in favor of a 2 a.m. cutoff time for the Barclays Center's liquor license.

Brooklyn Speaks wants the 10 p.m cutoff time every night, not just during games. That's because the arena will have lounges that could function as bars when the arena isn't in use for sporting events, Veconi said.