By Patrick Hedlund
DNAinfo News Editor
LOWER EAST SIDE — If there is one constant in today’s East Village and Lower East Side — it’s vomit.
The pools of puke that residents find on their sidewalks on a near-daily basis became the running theme at a forum held Thursday to discuss the continued increase of new bars and restaurants in the nightlife-rich neighborhoods.
From the loss of retail diversity on residential strips to late-night partiers “vomiting, urinating and sometimes defecating” on the street, as one resident described it, locals sought to explore strategies with Community Board 3 for how develop new policies for approving or denying liquor license applications in the area.
“I’m just not sure what to do,” said a well-dressed, messy-haired resident of East 1st Street, one of the few attendees not to have lived in the community for at least three decades.
The tenant explained that he moved to his current apartment after a stint on Eldridge Street that saw him vying with late-night noise from clubs and their clientele, only to discover that it was just as bad above Houston Street.
“I don’t want to leave this neighborhood,” he said, “but I can’t sleep.”
Community Board 3 previously introduced a policy aimed at restricting new liquor licenses along a series of booze-friendly corridors in residential areas.
But that has done little to stop fun-seeking patrons from invading the area on weekends, creating havoc for residents who have seen their neighborhood transform into one with the highest amount of bars in the country.
One 9th Street resident even came equipped with a large sign illustrating the issue: The East Village’s 10003 zip code, it stated, counts the second-highest amount of drinking establishments in the nation, with 115 residents per liquor license.
The meeting, the first in a series put on the by the board to reevaluate its procedures for handling new liquor licenses, attracted roughly 50 attendees mostly there to complain about conditions brought on by the bars and restaurants.
The wide-ranging, two-and-a-half-hour discussion covered all of the factors contributing to the current situation, but it was roundly agreed that the police need to do a better job of rooting out problem establishments and punishing offending operators that give all bar owners a bad name.
“It can’t just be an anti-bar movement, bars are bad, shut ’em all down,” said CB 3 member David McWater, the board’s former chair and a bar owner himself.
He explained that landlords and real estate brokers both stand to gain more financially by bringing in nightlife tenants, because they tend to pay the highest rents.
With really no way to confront that issue outside of persuading building owners not to rent to bars — an idea suggested by some in attendance — new legislation or police action become the only way to combat the problem.
“Force the police to enforce the rules,” said on resident, who’s lived on the Lower East Side since 1964.
For example, clubs that permit dancing inside but don’t have a cabaret license allowing them to do so should be targeted for breaking the rules, McWater said.
Paul Seres — a Ludlow Street resident, member of Community Board 4’s liquor license committee, and the president of the New York Nightlife Association — noted that the police precinct in Chelsea responded to an increase in new nightclubs in that neighborhood by bulking up its force with officers in need of overtime work.
“I’m a firm believer that bad operators need to be punished,” he said.
Board 3 district manager Susan Stetzer said local police used to have a unit dedicated solely to issues of nightlife, but that it has since been discontinued and the local precincts haven’t been able to add more officers.
Still, she said the seemingly quiet voice of neighbors can still be heard over the din of nightlife.
“You should not give up,” she said. “It won’t do everything, but it will help.”
