From Gothamist we learn that the NYPD busted up a bit of a celebration at the Eagle in Chelsea.
An unannounced police and State Liquor Authority inspection at the Eagle, a “leather and Levis” gay bar in Chelsea, in the midst of celebrations over the legalization of gay marriage is raising eyebrows about the timing of the raid.
“In typical New York City Police Department fashion, the N.Y.P.D. demonstrated its disrespect for the gay community by raiding the Eagle mere moments after the passage of most important piece of gay rights legislation in history,” said veteran gay rights activist Allen Roskoff. The police maintain the inspection was part of a routine operation planned weeks ago under a program known as MARCH, or multiagency response to community hot spots. The Eagle has been the subject of several noise complaints from the surrounding community, and the inspection lead to six violations being issued to the bar, for things like noise and a lack of a public assembly permit.
The State Liquor Authority claims that these raids are planned in advance, which I find even more troubling. They hit up a gay bar on the Friday before Pride Weekend and, coincidentally, on the night the gay marriage vote was going down and, essentially, found pretty much nothing.
I have a real problem with the timing, unless you’re going to tell me that the SLA goes into all the Yankees-themed sports bars on River Avenue during the playoffs and does the same thing. Yeah. Exactly.
Anyway, most New Yorkers, my self included, seem to think the NYPD is full of crap with its justification of complaints, and the site Vanishing New York looked into the noise claims. To borrow a phrase from the media when describing any Obama-related bad news, unexpectedly, there’s no evidence of such claims.
As the Times reported on this weekend’s raid, the police turned on the lights, shined flashlights in patrons’ faces, and forced people to empty their pockets. Patrons report being harassed and intimidated. An NYPD spokesperson said the raid had nothing to do with the bar’s clientele, “it has to do with complaints.” Said the Times, establishments targeted for this type of inspection are “selected because they are the subjects of ‘chronic complaints’ from community members” for problems like excessive noise.
How many noise complaints has the Eagle had in the past year? According to the 311 Service Request Map, there have been zero complaints of any kind. Most of the complaints in this largely unpopulated area are about construction noise.
So where are all the noise complaints that prompted this? No one knows, particularly the 311 service which handles such things. You would think a place with so many complaints would have a few logged where they are dealt with, wouldn’t you? Well, yeah, if the complaints were actually true.
The simple fact is that the SLA waited until they knew the bar would be its busiest and chose the moment to demonstrate force to a community celebrating history. If that’s not the case, I’m willing to be proven long and I look forward to the long list of raids that will go on during October when the Yankees are in the playoffs. Having been through that area at those times, you couldn’t convince me that the same “noise” complaints couldn’t be had in that area, particularly with the drunk scumbags falling out of the places and into the street under the 4 train.
The city has some explaining to do.