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Sports Bar to Replace Notorious Hunts Point Strip Club

By Eddie Small | October 23, 2014 8:43am
 The future site of what building owners hope will be the Break Time Sports Bar and Grill.
The future site of what building owners hope will be the Break Time Sports Bar and Grill.
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DNAinfo/Eddie Small

HUNTS POINT — This Bronx bar could be going from seedy to sporty.

Plans are in the works for Heat, a notorious strip club now shuttered in the South Bronx, to soon be replaced by Break Time Sports Bar and Grill.

The erotic dance bar was infamous for violence and viewed as a nuisance in the community.

A 33-year-old mother of three was killed in front of the club in 2011, and there were shootings and a stabbing there in January 2012, according to news reports and New York State Liquor Authority.

The club also employed unlicensed security guards and displayed "a sustained and continuing pattern of noise, disturbance, misconduct or disorder," the SLA said.

The SLA fined Heat $10,000 for violations in 2013. When Miguel Orozco, who held the liquor license, did not pay, the board revoked his license.

Orozco could not be reached for comment.

Break Time will have nothing in common with its seedier predecessor, according to Mark Weinstein, the lawyer for the proposed business.

The bar will employ state-licensed security guards and keep relatively conservative hours, operating from noon until midnight, he said.

"Based on the history, we're going to start that way, and then when it's established, then we'll go back to the community board and possibly expand those hours," he said. "But we're going to start off very modestly."

Heat had effectively shut down about a year before losing its liquor license, and the building has been vacant since then, according to landowner Nudpanath (Bala) Nadanapathan.

Nadanapathan has been the landowner at 405 Hunts Point Ave. for about 17 years but was not involved with running Heat when it occupied the building, he said.

However, he will run Break Time himself to help ensure the restaurant's quality.

"It’s an industrial area right now, but there’s a market there," Nadanapathan said. "There’s no regular bar where you can go sit down in Hunts Point."

Break Time plans to serve standard sports bar food, such as burgers, fries, chicken wings and chicken fingers, according to Weinstein. Owners plan to have six televisions, 20 tables and 49 seats at the bar and will hopefully be open in time for the football playoffs.

The eatery will be affiliated with all of New York's professional sports teams, according to Nadanapathan.

The restaurant owner is hoping to get a boost when he goes before Bronx Community Board 2 at its upcoming meeting on Oct. 29 for a letter of support.

Board members have been receptive toward the eatery so far.

"He took down the stripper poles. He’s committing to not having topless entertainment there, and we feel that it’s going to liven up the area," district manager Rafael Salamanca Jr. said. "The businesses there, they want a place where they can have lunch with their business partners during the day."

Break Time will go before the SLA for approval after the upcoming community board meeting, Weinstein added, and it should be set to open soon afterward.

"That’s our hope: that it can somehow — we can somehow — develop it and develop that area with a very respectable sports bar," he said. "If it’s done right, it could be fun."