Letter to Mayor Michael Bloomberg Opposing Rooftop Cafes — March 11, 2003

Dear Mr. Bloomberg;

The Greenwich Village Block Associations is a coalition of block associations dedicated to preserving and improving the quality of life for residents of Greenwich Village. Problems caused by licensed premises regularly come up in our discussions, but recently, a harbinger of countless difficulties has appeared on the horizon: the threat that rooftop cafes may intrude upon the cityscape and into our homes.

An application by Garage Café on Seventh Avenue to alter its liquor license to open a rooftop expansion as well as the noisy rooftop café at nearby Sushi Samba raises serious concerns and necessitates prompt action in order to protect the ambiance of Greenwich Village. The neighborhood’s low-rise nature combined with the presence of taller structures will exaggerate sounds from rooftop cafes over an extensive area. Until now an apartment dweller did not reasonably have to regard a nearby rooftop as a potential source of disturbance.

Because of recent increases in sidewalk café fees, owners of licensed premises may think of other ways to provide outdoor dining space. Along with this, proprietors of licensed premises will seek to circumvent the Mayor’s recent anti-smoking initiative by asserting the necessity of providing a place for smokers as an excuse to increase the size of their businesses. That was surely not the intent of the Mayor’s legislation, and the presence of these cafes will certainly undermine acceptance of the new regulations. Depending on weather conditions, residents may, indeed, find that pollution from these outside venues––along with intolerable noise––will drift into their homes.

In the best of all possible worlds, an experiment with rooftop cafes might be reasonable, but government agencies frequently fail to properly regulate licensed premises or to deter undesirable behavior that impacts the residential community. Thus, any legislation that regulates rules of operation for rooftop cafes implicitly legitimizes them and owners of licensed premises will attempt to expand their businesses in this way. Anything more encouraging than regulating existing rooftop cafes and ensuring that no new ones are approved will open a Pandora’s box of mischief that will be impossible to close.

In addition, the difficulties of ensuring the structural integrity of the buildings which might be locations for these cafes, of assuring that safe egress is available to customers, and of addressing legitimate fire safety concerns would be a crushingly expensive burden to a city government under budget restraints.

It is patently unfair to residents facing higher taxes and other monetary increases along with decreased services to expect them to expend time, energy, and expense to deal with unnecessary, difficult problems created by a rooftop café impinging on the peaceful enjoyment of their homes. The GVBA believes that properly regulating existing cafes and ensuring that no new rooftop cafes are allowed is essential to safeguarding the “quality of life” for residents of our community.

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