By Jill Colvin
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MIDTOWN — Community Board 5 got the last laugh.
The board voted overwhelmingly to deny a Times Square comedy club's application for a "cabaret license" that would allow dancing after the club's owners failed to produce proof that they'd been ticketed before.
Residents, local block associations and the reverend of a Times Square church had rallied to block the Ha! Comedy Club at 163 W. 46th St. from getting the license for fear the cavernous underground 11,000 square foot space would one day be transformed into a nightclub — something that locals said would be a disaster.
Ha!'s owners, meanwhile, maintained they had no intention of starting a dance club and only wanted permission to stage Off-Broadway shows where audience members could get up and dance in the aisles.
In a compromise earlier this month, the board's Public Safety and Quality of Life committee voted to recommend approving the license, but only on the condition that the owners produce evidence that they'd been fined for illegal dancing, which Ha! owners they said they had. The board also asked to see a copy of Ha!'s lease, which manager Anthony DiNapoli, 41, said barred him from trading his mic stands for DJ booths.
Committee chair Nicholas Athanail said the owners of Ha! failed to submit the documents in time for last week's full board vote. As a result, the board voted to deny the application.
"They failed to deliver any summons and we couldn't find any. They didn't deliver their lease," Athanail said.
The club's management slammed the decision Monday, saying that the board should have waited.
"I think it was unfair," said Teddy Gonzalez, who represents Comedy Club of NYC, which operates Ha!
Gonzalez said the owners were searching for the summonses, but hadn't been able to locate them yet.
"They should have at least postponed it," Gonzalez said.
Residents, meanwhile, were celebrating the news.
"Thank you so much," an excited Kathleen Cromwell, one of the staunchest opponents of the license, said following the vote.
Cromwell, a member of the West 46th Street Block Association who has lived on the block for 30 years, had argued the residential block was already saturated with bars and that a dance club would have been unbearable.
Gonzalez said the club's best option is likely to postpone filing an application with the Department of Consumer Affairs and to re-apply with the board at a future date.
