Board 2 Ponders Sidewalk Cafés, Adult Business

At its May meeting, Community Board 2 dealt with four applications from the city Department of Consumer Affairs and the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Three of them elicited objections. Apart from the applications, meeting attendees were warned that a large adult entertainment emporium was being planned in Long Island City, set up so that motorists coming off the upper roadway of the Queensboro Bridge would be attracted by it.

Other announcements concerned cigarette advertising in convenience stores, a coming improvement project on Barnett Avenue and repair of the Borden Avenue Bridge.

The first person to address one of the applications was Laura Heim, an architect with a storefront office on 46th Street near Skillman Avenue. On the corner itself is a new wine bar/restaurant called Claret, which has made an application for a consumer affairs license that would allow it to have an unenclosed sidewalk café with a dozen tables and 24 seats. Heim understood the tables and seats would be on 46th Street and feared they might encroach on her property. When the land use committee made its report, Lisa Deller, its chairperson, said that Claret had wanted to place tables and seats on Skillman Avenue but the committee thought it better to put them on 46th Street, where they would extend for 31 feet, eight inches. Heim had said it would be a bad idea to start putting outdoor tables and chairs on side streets, but the committee had a different opinion. The motion approving the committee's plan drew only a few negative votes.

Sean Og, a bar at the corner of Woodside Avenue and 60th Street, put in a Consumer Affairs application for an unenclosed sidewalk café with 15 tables and 30 seats. Sean Og's owners also said they had added extensive restaurant service and were promoting the image of the place as more than a pit stop for beer, wine and liquor. A majority of the land use committee did not favor the application, claiming that Sean Og simply wants to put seats outside in an attempt to revive its declining business. The owners of Sean Og said they were making an investment and taking a financial risk doing so, since after 11 years on that corner the owners did indeed have to reverse a falloff in revenue. They had bought neighboring property and were expanding. As for the plans for a restaurant, Steve Cooper of the board said he had seen a menu and called it extensive. An objection was lodged that Sean Og is located in residential Woodside and outside tables would cause inconvenience to local families; one person even thought it might have a negative effect on the No. 18 bus stop and its waiting riders on Woodside Avenue. But Sean Og's established status and what was seen as a positive attempt to do business won passage of the motion to accept it with three negative votes and one abstention.

The Sunnyside Gardens text amendment was approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission on Wednesday, April 22, and an announcement was made about it at the meeting, yet the LPC-related application on the docket might be seen in conflict with it, and certainly some of those present at Sunnyside Community Services believed the application illegitimate and wrangled about it at length. "The application is for renovations for a replacement of lattice partial fencing of rear porch" was the official statement for the application pertaining to the house at 39-87 48th St., but Patrick O'Reilly, owner of the house, told the meeting that what he really had was an old trellis in disrepair that he wished to replace. It was his intention to garland the new trellis with greenery, which would pleasantly wall him off from his neighbors, whom he described as fine people but inclined to use their large backyard as a dog run. The land use committee disapproved of the application by a 3-2 vote because it called for a fence. Even if the fence were only a trellis, fences, which were banned at the time Sunnyside Gardens was new in the 1920s, are being discouraged by the LPC as part of its designation of Sunnyside Gardens as a historic neighborhood. Complicating the matter is the fact that the trellis would be attached to a deck, and decks are also discouraged. The motion to approve construction of the new trellis was passed, though there were several negative votes, notably from board members known to be Sunnyside Gardens residents.

The remaining application was made by Donato's, a restaurant on 39th Avenue at 51st Street that has had outdoor seating for years. There were some small questions, not for the first time, about the planters that adorn the corner property, and complaints about delivery trucks that double-park on either street were also aired, but the vote was almost unanimous. Perhaps anticipating approval, Donato's appreciative owners sent over containers of pasta and chicken for the attendees' post-meeting enjoyment.