New Rochelle City Council Votes 7-0 to Deny Cabaret License to Puerto Rican Restaurant

Written By: Robert Cox

Siete Oco Siete NightThe New Rochelle City Council voted 7-0 to deny a controversial application cabaret license to Siete Ocho Siete, a Puerto Rican restaurant that opened over a year ago after extensive renovations predicated on the expectation that a cabaret license would be approved without question.

In public discussions last night, council members raised concerns that the parking plan proposed by the ownership of Siete Ocho Siete did not meet minimum requirements.

“I think we all were in agreement that the application provided by 787 was insufficient as to our requirements for a special use cabaret license,” Coucilman Jared Rice told Talk of the Sound.

The plan, according to knowledgeable sources inside City Hall, designated the entire parking lot at the strip mall where the restaurant is located to meeting parking requirements. The restaurant lease, however, designates a limited number of parking spaces to the restaurant.

Prior to the meeting, Mayor Noam Bramson was believed by many to have the necessary votes to gain approval for granting the cabaret license. As support for the license faded, Bramson sought first to table the resolution in order to give ownership of Siete Ocho Siete an opportunity to resubmit a modified application. Bramson then moved to take the meeting into executive session.

Coming out of executive session, support for the cabaret license had evaporated entirely.

Some have questioned the need for a drawn out process, with a public hearing stretched over a period of weeks, time used by the ownership of Siete Ocho Siete to bring dozens of friends, family members and customers to speak in favor of granting the cabaret license. Typically, an application for any sort of special license or permit is straightforward; a owner reads the code to see if the qualify, submits an application for license with all required documents and staff and review followed by a vote up or down by the appropriate public body.

38 thoughts on “New Rochelle City Council Votes 7-0 to Deny Cabaret License to Puerto Rican Restaurant”

  1. Cabaret license

    There are Mexican cabarets in New Rochelle operating without these problems.

  2. Thank you, Bob…
    for making this possible.

    I’m sure if the redoubtable politics weren’t reading here, they would have happily voted yes.

    Povero Nick, meglio fortuna la prossima volta.

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

  3. We’ll all feel better when a 99 cent store opens up there.
    regardless of your take on city gov’t, the fact is a nice establishment opened up. I wish they were able to work something out. Possibly overflow parking at the soon to be shut down again, again supermarket a block down the road? I’d rather see 787 do well than not do well.

    1. Why shouldn’t it match downtown?
      Or haven’t you noticed that downtown is a sewer with nothing but 99 cent stores?

      You okay with that?

    2. NOT
      do you live next door? You don’t? Well, then you should not have any say in this matter. It is the people that LIVE IN THE AREA who will be affected by this idiotic idea if it ever passes, which it won’t. Ifyou want a cabaret, open your own in downtown area, or better yet, right next door to your house and see how you like it at midnight when you are trying to sleep. Typical.

      1. We addressed this very issue in 2009….
        A set aside for a downtown cabaret area, as has been suggested by several people, would not “solve” the problem as we explained several years ago:

        Downtown Development Thwarted by Proliferation of Storefront Churches in the New Rochelle Business Improvement District

        The New Rochelle Downtown Business Improvement District is facing a threat from an unexpected source — the New York State Liquor Authority. Under New York State Law, applicants for a liquor store license, wine store license and on-premises license cannot be within 200 feet of a school, church, synagogue or other place of worship. Due to the quilt-pattern of existing churches and schools in the area and the recent proliferation of storefront churches along the Main Street corridor in the heart of the BID, all but a half block area between Division Street and Centre Avenue is now off-limits to new bars, restaurants or nightclubs. This does not affect businesses which have continually operated with a liquor license before a church opened within 200 feet of that establishment but does impact a location that changes owners.

        read the entire article here: http://www.newrochelletalk.com/node/1236

      2. Remember the Palace night club?
        ’nuff said on a cabaret downtown.

        Now, decent retail stores downtown, wouldn’t THAT be a novel idea?

      3. BID leadership must change
        Whoever it is does not have New Rochelle’s best interest at heart. I’m sure it’s someone who’s stealing from the Queen City..

      4. Bravo Irish65.In the mornings
        Bravo Irish65.In the mornings I go to Marina Deli for coffee and on saturday and sunday mornings I have seen used condoms just thrown in the parking lot, empty beer bottles along with other garbage thrown around, syringes, also a small bag what looked like marijuana and vomit from people who apparently don’t know how to control their drinking. When Mamma Francesca was there you never saw that.

      5. No thanks to Nick on this, he was looking to line his pockets…
        even more.

        Thanks to TOTS for keeping the focus on this issue. The City Council no doubt reads here, and the free dinners from Nick weren’t enough to sway them.

        Kudos to TOTS.

      6. This is 2 separate matters
        The cabaret license and noise are 2 separate issues. If people are outside of the restaurant at night making noise, that is a noise complaint issue. If you can hear the music, it is a noise complaint issue. The cabaret license is a business issue. You can just as easily have kids hanging out making noise outside of a dunkin donuts (like the one on east main street, which is a mega kid hang out).

      7. What’s your point?
        Noise, business, it all rolls up into one issue:

        Nick didn’t pay off the right people this time.

        Give him time, he’ll get it right the next time.

        You remember the library tax vote, don’t you? It was brought up and brought up and brought up and brought up………until it passed.

        So, Nick, keep those cards and letters and lunches and dinners and ……… well, you know ….. coming, and one of these days, when no one here is looking, you’ll get your license.

    3. We’ll all feel better when a 99 cent store opens up there.
      It does not surprise me. Anything good in New Rochelle is destined to fail if it is not Walgreen’s, CVS or a 99 cent store. It is so sad. I am moving out of this place, I have had enough of this nonsense.

  4. When the heat is on even the
    When the heat is on even the Mayors sure things have a modicum although microscopic of integrity.
    Fertel does not even have a microscopic modicum of integrity he is the Mayors fool.
    Look for another pass to occur while you are sleeping where by the Mayor will get his way…..

    1. Nope, no integrity, too much press…
      and Idoni II don’t like press.

      >Look for another pass to occur while you are sleeping where by the Mayor will get his way…..

      Bingo.

  5. This is great news
    For once the City of New Rochelle did something right for it’s citizens. Thank you.

    1. For its citizens?
      Are you serious?

      They didn’t like the negative press they got here, that’s all. If New Rochelle politicos wanted to do something right ‘for their citizens’, they’d drop the moronic fruit market/cook your own food plan at the Armory. Did the protest shut it down?

      Oh, yeah, and if the New Rochelle politicos wanted to do something right ‘for their citizens’, they’d REVITALIZE DOWNTOWN NEW ROCHELLE. Do something right ‘for their citizens’, I love that.

      Sorry, Nick, you’ll have to give a bigger portion of pasta fagioli next time, oops sorry, arroz con pollo. HAHAHAHAHAHA.

      1. right again
        that insane idea about the armory makes me wonder about the intelligence of these people who come up with ideas like that. This is not just not smart, it’s egregiously stupid and short-sighted. Do something about downtown instead so citizens are not ripped off, assaulted, robbed in broad daylight anymore. What are the cops doing anyway?????

      2. what cops?
        The police department is undermanned. At night, there are just a handful of officers on patrol. Above Eastchester Road there is typically 1 or 0. Below Eastchester Road sometimes as few as 5 or 6.

        Last night there was an incident at the Quaker Ridge Shopping Center at about 11 PM. There were 8 officers up there. Do the math. The rest of the City was almost entirely uncovered by police on patrol.

        Granted, had there been an incident downtown most of these officers would have left and gone to that scene but if you think the problem in New Rochelle is police sitting around with nothing to do then I suggest you buy yourself a police scanner and listen to the constant demands placed on our police force — anything to responding to an auto accident to serious crimes and everything in between.

      3. understaffed police and..
        Everytime I seem to pass a new rochelle cop they seem to be on their cell phones even while driving! I have called the police dept. no less than 5 times to report cops on their cell while driving…..is this how they are protecting us? In the mean time there are people driving like assholes in this town, making u- turns on north ave, crossing the double yellow to b eat you at the next light, over run with taxi drivers who don’t seem like they have a clue about the driving rules….where are the police then…on their phones in some corner hiding apparently. The response i have gotten was “they might be not he phone with headquarters” Don’t they have car radios for that? One officer said how do you know they are driving while talking…my response – : I AM DRIVING ALONG SIDE THEM SPEAKING TO YOU AND THEY DON”T EVEN SEE ME TALKING” the headquarters response “SIR YOU KNOW THAT IS ILLEGAL DON”T YOU”

        Stop wasting money and get some more police on duty…..wait that might just help the phone companies and not us…hmmm

      4. How do you know the nature of their call?
        Shouldn’t you be worrying about the Garbage Nazi harassing your kids?

      5. I hate driving down town
        I agree with you. Driving through down town New Rochelle is like driving through a war zone. There are people double parked, cutting me off and driving between two lanes. Do these people know the rules. It take me so much time to drive North Ave and Main Street. The whole down town New Rochelle is a mess, which I try to avoid at all cost.

      6. Yes, but that has nothing to do with the police…
        it has everything to do with the crooks in City Hall who allowed dollar stores and vegetable stores to proliferate on Main Street, which resulted in double parking and otherwise ignoring the rules.

        How can they know the rules? They are not yet bilingual.

      7. how did they get a drivers
        how did they get a drivers license then? I Am worried about it all newrochelleused…dont you worry about it!

      8. They have bilingual signs in Kohl’s…
        don’t they give bilingual driver’s license tests? I have been to the DMV, I know for a fact that English is never spoken to some people on line at all.

        Doesn’t it come under the heading of not assimilating?

        Don’t worry, be happy, New Rochelle will be a sewer and City Hall will be crooked long after you and I are gone.

      9. The cops are not the problem, City Hall is the problem.
        The cops and firemen of New Rochelle have to cope with the Armageddon that Idoni I and Idoni II have created.

        City Hall politics are not intelligent, they’re smart like a fox. They are interested in their bank accounts.

        Do something about downtown? A brilliant sentiment, but to whom are you addressing this? Think there is someone here who will listen? Guess you’ve missed my last six gazillion posts, talking to no one who listens.

        Let’s just hope The Armory isn’t levelled while no one is looking. Yes, City Hall would do just that.

  6. Hooray!
    The city council finally gets something right.
    Didnt the police commish eat there free?
    How did that work out for you Nick.

  7. Never had a chance
    Parking spaces do not fluctuate. Looking back now, we can see it has always been the case that there was not enough parking. The owners of 787 knew that, City officials knew that, the City Council knew that.

    All of which makes me wonder why this application was even submitted in the first place?

    The word last night was that the Mayor had lined up 4 votes in support of 787 and, as we saw, tried to bail them out last night by tabling the motion to approve the license.

    So what does this show about New Rochelle and how our government works?

    1. You tell me…
      >So what does this show about New Rochelle and how our government works?

      This has been going on for decades.

      So? Who’s going to change it?

      Exactly.

    2. disgraceful
      that’s it. disgraceful. I loathe this kind of manoevering….it is all about power and the people who put there trust in government, get royally screwed every single time. Who’s making money out of this deal, somebody must be.

      1. *sigh*
        >>Who’s making money out of this deal, somebody must be.

        Ya think? Of course ‘someone’ is making money out of all the deals going on in New Rochelle. Whom do you think is making money?

        I’ll wait.

  8. Siete Ocho Siete
    Sometimes justice prevails even when you’re so cocky because you fed so many corrupt city leaders with your veal parmesan and your chicken cacciatore and then mopping it down with drinks until they go back to their city desks drunk. This all happening with top police brass rubbing elbows with them on the same table and watching them get into their vehicles drunk as a skunk. Well, Nick….. (owner of the establishment) I guess you “ain’t” all that you thought you were!!!!!

    1. Absolutely nothing to do with justice or downtown…
      New Rochelle wouldn’t be a sewer. It remains a sewer because people get paid off to keep it a sewer.

      Poor Nick lost out THIS time, but don’t count him out. He didn’t prevail with the politicos in New Rochelle because he believes in truth, ‘justice’, and the American way. he believes in Nick and the almighty dollar.

      Just a matter of time, Govtruth, just a matter of time. You remember the library tax vote, don’t you?

    2. Right on!
      What about the people that live around there Nick? Ever have any thought for them? We don’t all go out at night you know….we have day jobs and have to get SOME sleep in order to get up EARLY and get to work. Ever think about that you selfish jerk? And Bramson, I wrote you personally about this matter and your reply to me was totally disingenuous! You were working to try and get this passed the whole time!!!! If you want a cabaret, put it downtown for god’s sake where it might do some good, not in the middle of a residential area where most people are asleep by the time this “cabaret” heats up. It’s a tacky place anyway…cabaret, right….you wish.

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