HELLS KITCHEN — Clinton Towers residents are asking the city to investigate the lease of a Mexican restaurant with a full bar on the building's ground floor, accusing a board member with ties to the cantina with self-dealing.
Tenants of the Mitchell-Lama complex claim that the upcoming eatery will bring unwanted noise, smoke and congestion to the front of the building and the community board, at the behest of tenants, is asking the city's Department of Housing and Preservation to investigate impropriety in signing a lease with restaurateur Kurt Kalm.
Kalm is a known business partner of one of the building's board members Mickey Spillane, the son of the infamous Hell's Kitchen "gentleman gangster" of the same name.
"They've been assuring Mr. Kalm that they’ll get this property for him," said the building's tenant association president Mary Somoza. "[They're being] entirely disingenuous."
On Tuesday, Kalm, who owns several other bars and restaurants in the neighborhood, began the process of applying for a liquor license for a ground floor commercial space in Clinton Towers, a Mitchell-Lama complex, that could fit up to 125 people and stay open until 4 a.m.
The application Kalm submitted to the board on Tuesday listed the restaurant Mickey Spillane's on Ninth Ave. as one of his other business ventures, which is partly owned by Spillane, according to reports.
"I don’t talk about my businesses publicly," Kalm said, when asked about his partnership with Spillane. "I have many businesses, I have many different partners in those business."
"In America we don’t have Napoleonic law," he said. "I'm not guilty until proven innocent."
An earlier proposal for the Mexican restaurant at Clinton Towers had come before the community board last year and had included an outdoor café area. That plan was axed once the community board proved that zoning required the outdoor space to be reserved for the residents' use, members said.
In that iteration, the restaurant was called "Señor Mickey's," according to the community board, though it's since been revised in mockups with the name "Señor Grande."
Last week, when the proposal came before the community board for a second time, dozens of concerned residents turned up to oppose the application citing noise, congregating smokers which could adversely affect a nearby daycare and church.
“This is totally, absolutely 100 percent detrimental for our building,” said Somoza. “We have 396 apartments, everyone's working hard, some of them two [or] three jobs. They’re coming home [and] they don’t want smoke, they don’t want noise, whatever that whole element brings to a completely residential area.”
Others expressed concerns that the open space in front of the restaurant would be monopolized by loiterers.
"I have a child with special needs," said Juan Pilco, 65, through a translator. "I take him to play downstairs. They want to build a restaurant, now where will I take him?"
The space has been vacant for years and building management has reviewed dozens of different proposals to fill the space from nail salons to dry cleaners and none of them seemed feasible, said Michael Piantadosi, 66, who's managed the building for 16 years.
Piantadosi likened the proposed restaurant to a Mexican-themed Applebee's that would provide fast and moderately priced food for residents.
"If you want to go out, you don't feel like cooking and you just want something fast [and] popularly priced it wouldn't be a bad place to go," Piantadosi said. "It's not the sort of place that's going to invite an unsavory crowd..it's not like a saloon."
Piantadosi dismissed residents' concerns as coming from a few fringe tenants.
"There's a certain group of folks who [no matter] what you said the’yre going to object to it."
Spillane did not return a request for comment.
